Grain Looking to Market 800 MHz for Direct-to-Cell
The investment firm is buying the spectrum from T-Mobile.
WASHINGTON, April 1, 2026 – Investment firm Grain Management is eyeing new customers for the spectrum it’s buying from T-Mobile: satellite companies.
T-Mobile reached a deal in March 2025 to sell Grain its 800 MegaHertz (MHz) spectrum for $2.9 billion, plus the firm’s 600 MHz holdings. The idea initially was for Grain to lease or sell the spectrum to utility companies or mobile carriers.
Adding satellite companies to the mix would further Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s desire to boost the space economy and satellite industry, the companies said in a filing posted March 27.
“For example, a satellite D2D operator could rapidly deploy the spectrum in the near term and, as 800 MHz spectrum is sold or leased to terrestrial operators, the geographic scope of satellite services could be reduced to areas where the spectrum is not being deployed terrestrially,” the companies wrote.
The companies are seeking a number of waivers they say are essential to the deal, including waiving build out deadlines associated with the 800 MHz licenses to give companies the lease or purchase from Grain time to deploy. The companies also amended those requests to propose “more aggressive and shorter duration buildout conditions.”
Newly among the proposed waivers is a request to allow mobile-satellite service (MSS) and supplemental coverage from space (SCS) in the band. The former would be provided with spectrum controlled directly by a satellite company, and the latter is provided via 5G carrier spectrum leased by satellite operators.
The satellite services in the band would have secondary status to protect terrestrial users from interference, the companies said.
Utilities have supported the deal, while rural wireless carriers have asked the FCC to tack extra conditions on any approval. The smaller wireless providers said the agency should ensure the spectrum didn’t lie fallow while Grain sought to sell the licenses for a profit, and require Grain to sell or lease the spectrum to rural carriers in certain areas to prevent consolidation.
Utility companies and trade groups said the spectrum would be useful for the industry to deploy private networks and monitor their infrastructure, and they supported the request to waive buildout deadlines, which would ordinarily come in 2028.
Grain, headed by communications industry veteran David Grain, also owns multiple regional fiber providers, a subsea cable operator, and a portfolio of towers, among other things.
Grain has a majority stake in Ritter Communications in Arkansas and Great Plains Communications in Nebraska. It also owns subsea fiber network provider Quintillion in Alaska.
SpaceX is purchasing $19.6 billion of spectrum from EchoStar in a bid to improve its direct-to-cell service. The company currently has 650 satellites supporting the service using T-Mobile spectrum, but is asking the FCC to launch up to 15,000 to support much higher speeds with the new airwaves.
AT&T and Verizon have deals with AST SpaceMobile to offer their own direct-to-cell services, both of which are planned to begin at least beta testing this year. AST has fallen behind on its launch schedule and said on its earnings call this month it’s now shooting for 45 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026.
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