SpaceX is reportedly looking to secure access to 80,000 cell sites across the US to support the company's ambitions to offer carrier services.

As reported by Bloomberg, the company is in talks with at least one major cellular infrastructure company to hit the target.

One of those companies appears to be US tower giant Crown Castle, which made reference to potential talks during its earnings call on Wednesday (October 21). Crown Castle owns and operates approximately 40,000 towers across the US.

When asked about whether Crown Castle is in talks with the likes of SpaceX or Amazon over a MLA (Master Lease Agreement), the company's chief executive officer, Chris Hillabrant, confirmed Crown Castle has been in talks.

"I don't think I want to get into customer-specific detail, but you can assume that we're talking to all parties," said Hillabrant.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has made no secret of his desire to enter the US carrier space, to compete with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

On SpaceX's own earnings call this week, Musk outlined the company's plans to build out a competitive carrier network.

"We will also have direct-to-sell, high-bandwidth direct-to-sell capability, and we will be building out our terrestrial network," said Musk. "So there's broad-based connectivity anywhere that Starlink is allowed to operate. So anywhere in the world that we're allowed to operate.

He added that satellite launches and spectrum acquisitions will "pave the way for Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile carrier in the US."

Mobile carriers typically lease space on towers owned by the likes of Crown Castle, American Tower, and Vertical Bridge to transmit their wireless spectrum.

SpaceX has ambitions to become the fourth main carrier in the country, and recently announced it will acquire Grain Management's nationwide 800MHz spectrum portfolio for $8 billion, while the company also secured the go-ahead to deploy 15,000 high-capacity D2D satellites.

Musk has called it the “last critical piece of the spectrum puzzle needed for SpaceX to provide complete phone coverage in America." And while T-Mobile's John Saw has warned SpaceX that it will take more than just spectrum to establish a competitive network in the US, Crown Castle sees the deal as a "huge milestone" for SpaceX.

"800MHz does solve one of the critical challenges for an eventual SpaceX deployment, which is you need low band to get into buildings," said Sunit Patel, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Crown Castle.

"You need low band to be able to provide breadth of coverage. And so, it's obviously a huge milestone in their acquisition of that spectrum."