在商业竞争中，正如在战争中一样，最稳妥的策略往往是避免低估竞争对手，即使形势看似对你有利。Verizon首席执行官丹·舒尔曼表示，在埃隆·马斯克将SpaceX的星链发展为美国重要网络运营商的雄心这一问题上，他秉持这一理念。“显然，技术和无线通信格局正在迅速演变，我们也需要随之迅速演变，”他在公司周一的第三季度财报电话会议上表示。“我还基于这样一个假设行事：SpaceX说要做的一切，他们都会做到，并且会完美执行。”
In business, as in war, the safest bet is often to avoid underestimating your competitors, even when the odds appear to be in your favor. Verizon CEO Dan Schulman says he's a student of that philosophy when it comes to Elon Musk's ambitions to develop SpaceX's Starlink into a significant US network player. "Clearly, the tech and the wireless landscape is rapidly evolving, and we need to rapidly evolve along with that," he said during the company's third-quarter earnings call Monday. "I also operate under the assumption that everything SpaceX says they will do, they will do, and that they will execute flawlessly."
撇开马斯克兑现其惊人承诺的往绩不谈，舒尔曼表示，星链要想对Verizon等成熟网络构成实质性竞争，仍需跨越重大的技术和财务障碍。但这并非不可能。“如果他们建设地面网络，基本上就会像其他所有网络一样，”他说。“我认为我们应该非常认真地对待这一点。”
Setting aside Musk's track record of delivering on his eyebrow-raising promises, Schulman said there are significant technical and financial hurdles that Starlink would have to clear to meaningfully compete with established networks like Verizon. But it is possible. "If they build a terrestrial network, it will basically look and feel like every other network," he said. "I think we should take it quite seriously."
本月初有消息称星链收购了一批适合移动通信的低频频谱，导致美国三大移动运营商的股价下跌约10%。Verizon是三家中唯一部分收复跌幅的一家。“他们的服务根本无法在郊区和城市地区与地面网络竞争，而我们约98%的收入都来自这些地区，”他谈及这套基于卫星的系统时表示。“我们的效率比他们高出100到1000倍。”
News earlier this month that Starlink had acquired a batch of mobile-friendly low-band spectrum sent the share prices of the major US mobile carriers falling by approximately 10%. Verizon is the only one of the three to partially recover from the drop. "Their service just can't compete with a terrestrial network in suburban and urban areas, where like 98% of our revenues are," he said of the satellite-based system. "We're somewhere between 100 to 1000 times more efficient than they are."
舒尔曼表示，建设一个具有竞争力的美国网络，尤其是移动网络，将需要在地球上建设多达8万座大型基站，并结合卫星和光纤进行连接。舒尔曼估计，该项目在六到八年内的成本高达5000亿美元，实际建网至少需要四到六年时间。
Building a competitive US network, especially for mobile, would require building as many as 80,000 large cell towers on Earth linked with some combination of satellites and fiber optics, Schulman said. Schulman estimates that project would cost up to a half trillion dollars over six to eight years, with a minimum of four to six years to actually build out the network.
“然后他们需要建立零售客户服务、后台系统等等，而所有这些最终让他们获得的基本上与我们今天拥有的相同的网络、相同的能力和相同的成本结构，”舒尔曼表示。这位Verizon首席执行官的言论出在他AT&T的对应人物约翰·斯坦基淡化Starlink移动网络可能对其业务构成威胁的担忧不到一周后。“我不会过度关注我所谓的一个低频段频谱运营商，”他说。
"Then they need to build retail customer service, back office systems, et cetera., and all of that gets them basically the same network and same capabilities and same cost structure as what we have today," Schulman said. The Verizon chief's remarks come less than a week after his AT&T counterpart, John Stankey, brushed off concerns that Starlink's mobile network could pose a threat to his business. "I wouldn't over-rotate on what I would call one carrier of low band spectrum," he said.