SpaceX · 25 Oct 2026
Starlink now has more subscribers than AT&T Fiber. Here's what that does and doesn't mean
SpaceX says Starlink ended September with 13.6 million consumer subscribers. AT&T says it ended the same quarter with 13.31 million fiber connections. On the headline numbers, a satellite network that had 7.2 million subscribers a year ago has now passed AT&T's fiber business. The comparison has been doing the rounds on X this weekend, while Elon Musk was out promoting Starlink. Here's how the two really stack up, and where the comparison gets slippery.
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The two numbers
Both figures come from each company's own third-quarter filings with the SEC, and both are measured at the same moment: Sept. 30, 2026.
- Starlink: 13.6 million consumer subscribers, up from 7.2 million a year earlier, according to SpaceX's quarterly report (Form 10-Q). SpaceX puts the growth at 88.9%.
- AT&T: 13.31 million fiber connections, up from 10.79 million, according to AT&T's third-quarter results filing. That's 23.4% growth. AT&T added 442,000 fiber connections in the quarter, part of what its earnings release called a record 769,000 internet net adds across fiber and fixed wireless.
So on the headline totals, Starlink is ahead by roughly 290,000. Because SpaceX rounds to one decimal place, the true gap could be anywhere from about 240,000 to 340,000. It's a narrow lead, but it's a lead.
The real story is the speed
| Sept. 30 | 2025 | 2026 | Added in a year | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starlink consumer subscribers | 7.2M | 13.6M | about 6.4M | 88.9% |
| AT&T fiber connections (consumer + business) | 10.79M | 13.31M | about 2.52M | 23.4% |
| AT&T Fiber (consumer only) | 10.12M | 12.56M | about 2.44M | 24.1% |
Over the past 12 months, Starlink added about 2.5 times as many subscribers as AT&T added fiber connections (consumer plus business). Spread evenly, that's roughly 533,000 new Starlink lines a month, which is more than the 442,000 fiber connections AT&T added in the whole third quarter. SpaceX's filing gives subscriber totals only at Sept. 30 of each year, not how many were added in the third quarter alone, so a monthly average is the fairest comparison the public numbers allow.
If you compare only home customers, Starlink's lead gets bigger. AT&T's consumer fiber business ended September at 12.56 million, about a million behind Starlink.
Why it's not quite apples to apples
The viral version of this stat skips some important fine print.
- Global versus American. AT&T's fiber customers are in the US. SpaceX says its Starlink network serves customers in 174 countries, territories and other markets, and its filing doesn't say how many of the 13.6 million subscribers are in the US.
- Service lines, not households. SpaceX counts each unique service line. Its filing says a household with both a home plan and a separate roam plan counts as two subscribers. Self-serve business plans are included too, while managed enterprise and government contracts, such as those for airlines and ships, are not.
- Cheaper plans are driving growth. Starlink's average consumer revenue fell to $69 a month from $83 a year earlier, and SpaceX says that's because it "expanded internationally and added lower-priced service plans." Growth is coming partly from lower-priced markets and plans.
- Fiber is only part of AT&T. AT&T also has 2.94 million fixed wireless internet connections (consumer and business) and more than 110 million retail wireless subscribers. Starlink has passed one AT&T product line, not the company.
What happens next: done versus promised
Done: Starlink passed AT&T Fiber on both companies' reported Sept. 30 numbers, using a network of more than 11,100 satellites, per SpaceX's filing.
Promised: AT&T says it remains "on track" to reach over 40 million fiber locations by the end of 2026 and more than 60 million by the end of 2030. That's a target, not a finished build-out, but it shows AT&T plans to keep growing. On the Starlink side, the next big step is phones. Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is in talks for tower access for its planned Starlink Mobile service, which I covered on Friday. No deal has been announced.
Musk's own take was short. Early Sunday, at 2:30am ET (11:30pm PT Saturday; ), he quoted a customer who said he'd "just set up @Starlink in 15 minutes" and was "saying goodbye to the scrappy Spectrum service," and wrote: "Try @Starlink for awesome Internet everywhere!"
Try @Starlink for awesome Internet everywhere!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2026
Post: Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on X, quoting @PhilipPowrs.
The bottom line: on the companies' own numbers, a satellite service now has more paying lines than AT&T has fiber connections, and it's adding them about 2.5 times faster. The lead is global, counts lines rather than homes, and rides on cheaper plans, but in my view the growth gap is the part that's hard to argue with.
Sources: SpaceX Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2026: Starlink consumer subscribers, ARPU, definitions, 174 markets, 11,100+ satellites; AT&T third-quarter 2026 results (Exhibit 99.2): fiber, AT&T Fiber, fixed wireless and wireless subscriber data; AT&T third-quarter 2026 earnings release (Exhibit 99.1): record internet net adds, fiber location targets; Elon Musk on X, Oct. 25, 2026, quoting @PhilipPowrs; Supercharged Daily: SpaceX Q3 2026 results. Gaps, monthly averages and ratios are my own math from those filings.
— Alex R
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