Shares in SpaceX are up sharply premarket after the company reached a deal to buy cellular spectrum licenses in a move to become a major wireless carrier.

For SpaceX investors, news came as a relief from disquiet about the bill for its AI ambitions. The stock closed 4% lower yesterday after news that the company had talked to lenders about raising $40 billion to buy Nvidia chips.

The new wireless business doesn't even exist yet, but it's already causing market ripples.

Gaining: Tower operators

Shares in American Tower REIT $(AMT)$, Crown Castle $(CCI)$ and SBA Communications (SBAC), which own cell towers and lease space to carriers, are gaining premarket.

That's because while SpaceX owns satellites, it needs infrastructure on the ground to support a mobile network. The U.S. licenses are in the 800-megahertz band used to provide wireless service from cellphone towers.

Losing: Other wireless carriers

Shares in AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and T-Mobile US $(TMUS)$ sank premarket.

"This is likely to be viewed as negative for wireless carriers, which we have a difficult time arguing against," analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets wrote. Still, it may take a long time for this competitive threat to arrive, given that SpaceX has only just got permission to launch 15,000 satellites for the new service.