Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - The Apple Alpha: FCC Filings and the SpaceX Threat

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Anpanman - The Apple Alpha: FCC Filings and the SpaceX Threat · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space mobile. Podcast.
0:11
Just basically from the phone, be seamless, regardless of where
0:14
you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:27
Everyone, thanks for joining on a very volatile morning of
0:32
liquidations. Yeah, we've got Bitcoin breaking
0:37
70,000. Perhaps Ethereum will fall under
0:40
2000. And So what that means is
0:45
obviously there's people that probably have cross holdings in
0:50
high beta names, but they also own some crypto, whether that's
0:54
retail investors, but also institutions.
0:56
And and so when you have these mass liquidations of people
0:59
having to reduce leverage, it typically hits all right, risk
1:03
assets. And we saw a bit of factor
1:07
movements yesterday with momentum growth, you know, all
1:11
the big, big high beta or winning areas getting hit pretty
1:15
hard versus value, dividend yield, those types of names, you
1:20
know, staples, consumer staples. And so, yeah, this is just part
1:25
of the macro picture of risk liquidations going into crypto,
1:33
which is then spilling to other areas.
1:35
I did talk about yesterday about how this is healthy for the
1:38
market at least on for for stocks, because for some of
1:42
these sectors that have performed quite well the
1:44
beginning of the year, you're going to have some periods of
1:46
consolidation. And yeah, so this is not
1:50
anything out of the ordinary. It is interesting though that
1:54
we, you know, crypto is now at a point that is similar to when I
2:00
guess Donald Trump won, you know, the presidency.
2:03
And so the entire gain for crypto has been completely wiped
2:06
out. And so, you know, for those who
2:09
are new to crypto, perhaps they haven't experienced it.
2:12
I was I invested in crypto for a number of years, 80 percent, 90%
2:17
drawdowns are feature, not a bug.
2:20
I mean, those things happen and for those who are involved in
2:25
it, you know, I guess you're now at a 50% drawdown.
2:29
It could get worse. But then perhaps me and even I
2:33
this morning was thinking, OK, what level would it have to get
2:36
to for me to perhaps get some exposure again.
2:40
And I think we'll thumb at least historically, perhaps that's not
2:43
going to be as bad because there's so many institutions
2:45
involved now. But you know, maybe a draw down
2:47
to 6070% is when you might start buying some of that stuff, some
2:51
of that stuff meaning, yeah, I I would say blue chips like like
2:55
Bitcoin or or Ethereum. But anyway, I'm not here to talk
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about crypto. I only mentioned it because it
3:02
obviously is having a pretty big impact on the market.
3:06
What I am here to talk about is the latest news with Apple and
3:09
then the news out today from Reuters, which has had somewhat
3:15
of a recent checkered history about some of the news that they
3:19
reported. But I think they're on point
3:21
with this news. But yeah, the the news that
3:24
SpaceX is looking to potentially introduce a phone eventually and
3:28
also service. And I can talk about what that
3:31
service might look like and what some of the challenges are.
3:34
But clearly that's a shot across the bow.
3:37
It's it's like The Avengers end game where if you're Apple,
3:42
Google, Samsung, any global MNO, you're not you should be shaking
3:47
your boots right now because Elon Musk is coming after you.
3:50
And so I think the strategic value for AST has gone up
3:54
markedly. And it may obviously it's not
3:56
reflected in the market today just given the risk off.
3:59
But these people digest this. It will become increasingly
4:03
clear that the need, the strategic need, and for AST
4:07
space mobile just Rock, You know, shut up today with that
4:12
confirmation. And once becomes formalized, I'm
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sure during the SpaceX IPO, it will be 1 of the selling points
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that they'll talk about with institutions and the cat will be
4:21
out of the bag. So let's go back to the Apple
4:26
testing news and why that's important.
4:28
So Catsy, in his infinite wisdom and due diligence, he uncovered
4:34
these FCC filings where Apple specifically is testing its
4:39
phones for supplemental coverage from space.
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And so in these filings specifically the hints are all
4:47
there, the puzzle pieces, you know, the company is testing its
4:51
phones for satellite connectivity in the 600
4:54
megahertz span, 700 megahertz, 800 megahertz and then the PCSG
4:59
block. And why that's important is that
5:01
there's only one brought, there's only one broadband
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satellite operator that is in the 700 and 800 megahertz span
5:10
and that is AC space bubble and and the companies that they are
5:15
working with our AT&T, Verizon and Firstnet.
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And so for those that remember, I guess it was like last year
5:25
maybe in Q3 or maybe it was over the summer, the information
5:29
leaked supposedly secret news that Apple and Starlink we're
5:35
testing with one another. And as we all said back then,
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you know, that's not really news.
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Apple should be testing its devices with every service that
5:48
M and OS are are seeking to use. And so in that case, T-Mobile
5:53
asked Apple to test Starlink to make sure that the phones work
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properly with Starlink's direct to cell service.
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And so as you guys will recall, I think ASD Space Mobile dropped
6:04
that day like 1015%. There was a ton of FUD and you
6:09
know, for the, the, the Musk influence, you know, the
6:13
influencers, the accounts that push the, the Tesla and SpaceX
6:18
narrative, they really, you know, pounded the table that, Oh
6:22
my gosh, something secret was going on with Apple and, and
6:25
SpaceX. And for those of us that are
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intimately familiar with the industry, that testing you'd
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expect, right? And and so we also dug deep and
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found filings that showed that Apple was testing with ASD Space
6:39
Mobile 2, at least in terms of setting standards around NTM.
6:43
And then these recent filings actually that came to light and
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it's actually, I guess they're not recent.
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These were filed in August of August 15th, 2025.
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And so you know Catsy uncovered them today or yesterday.
7:00
But but yeah, Apple is testing with ASD Space Mobile.
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And so for those that are unfamiliar, some of the 600
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megahertz which is low band cellular spectrum, that is
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T-Mobile, they own some of that and then a decent amount of that
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which they acquired through the Sprint, a Sprint merger and I
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believe they bought some of that through a spectrum auction.
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But the 700 and 800 megahertz, that's primarily all AT&T and
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Verizon. And then the PCSG block, which
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is 1.9 gigahertz. And that's the service that
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Starlink currently provides service on T for T-Mobile
7:41
phones. That's mid band spectrum that
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that was also included in this filing.
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And so you could run the same headlines that these, these,
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these Musk, you know, accounts are running that Starlink is, is
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working closely with AT&T, Apple, you can say the same
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thing as T Space Mobile is working closely with Apple.
8:01
In these filings, they don't specifically mention Starlink,
8:04
nor do they mention AST space mobile, but it's clear that
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these are the two operators, right?
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And so I, I think there was like there was a global star investor
8:13
that said a, well, global star is the only one that has an
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investment from Apple that they're working closely with.
8:19
That's true. Apple is working obviously with
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global star. They invested in an SBB, which
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is basically like a joint venture to and they put their
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spectrum assets into it and then the consolation and Apple owns
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85% of their capacity. However, in this, in this FCC
8:39
filing, there's no mention of global star spectrum which is
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L&S ban. I think most of their stuff is
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in the 2.4 gigahertz around there.
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And so specifically for this iPhone 17 testing, it is only
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with ASD space, mobile spectrum and some of Starlink's.
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And the reason why this this filing is really important is
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the fact that I believe it's, it was one of the Apple websites
9:10
that carries news. But Apple has plans for iPhone
9:14
18 to work seamlessly with, with satellite connectivity.
9:18
And in particular, Apple is seeking to have that service be
9:22
seamless, meaning not like the global star service where you
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have to go outside and you have to point directly at the
9:29
satellite and stay pointed at the satellite.
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Apple is seeking to have service that seamlessly works.
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So you won't, you won't even know if it switches between the,
9:40
the MNO or the satellite, you know, network and it's going to
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work indoors. It'll be, you know, the way that
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that was portrayed is that you could have the phone in your
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pocket and it'll still work with satellite.
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And so the only way that that works is if you are using low
9:57
band cellular spectrum. So what does that mean?
10:02
Low band cellular spectrum, which is between 600 to 900
10:05
megahertz, primarily 800 megahertz, that has
10:09
characteristics that enable for broad coverage and propagation,
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propagation, meaning it can go through 123 walls.
10:17
And so if you are in your house, the reason why people love AT&T
10:22
and Verizon service is that they have a large trove of low band
10:27
cellular spectrum. And so when you go into your
10:30
home, let's say if your Wi-Fi is down, your, your phone will
10:34
work. Or if you're in your car, your
10:35
phone works. Or if you're in New York City
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and you go down to the subway, your phone still works.
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And that's why low band spectrum is very, very important.
10:44
The, the, the spectrum strategy for carriers is that you want to
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have you build kind of like a multi layer cake where you have
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a decent amount of low band spectrum to provide coverage.
10:52
And then you have some level of mid band spectrum to provide
10:57
capacity because mid band spectrum can carry more data.
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And then and then this is part of 5G, you have some level of
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high band spectrum, which is really, really high speed data.
11:09
But of course that that spectrum is limited to having, you know,
11:14
the user needing to be in line of sight or in areas that are
11:18
unobstructed, right? And so, so we need the layered
11:21
cake. And for a long time, T-Mobile
11:23
didn't have that layered cake. They were primarily just a mid
11:25
band spectrum cellular company. And so for those that used
11:30
T-Mobile back in the day, like during the 90s and 2000s, its
11:34
service was horrendous because if you walked into any building
11:38
New York City, your cell phone would drop because they didn't
11:41
have any low band spectrum. But through the merger with
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Sprint and then also through getting, you know, a spectrum
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through an auction, 600 megahertz spectrum, they've
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improved their ability to provide greater coverage through
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buildings and things like that. So anyway, this filing, what it
11:59
means is that AST space Mobile, Apple is testing that spectrum
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with AST satellites. They're probably, I don't know,
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maybe they're under some NDA and they can't disclose that.
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But eventually it will get disclosed.
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And Apple, if they truly are trying to provide seamless
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coverage, there's only one provider that can do that.
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It's not Global Star, it's not Starlink, it's AST space mobile.
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And so you might ask, well, doesn't Starlink, doesn't
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T-Mobile own some 600 megahertz spectrum?
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Couldn't they let Starlink use that?
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The answer is absolutely not because there's two issues of
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that. One, the Starling satellites are
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architected to only work with mid band spectrum.
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So it's not as if you can take that same satellite and say hey,
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you're lighting up 1.9 gigahertz spectrum.
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Can you go light up the 600 megahertz spectrum?
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No, you can't because the way that the wavelengths work and,
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and the phased array, the spacing of the antenna elements,
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which I I learned through through Capsys very long
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information threads, you just can't do that.
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And so you actually have to put up a completely different
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satellite. And so that's actually what ASD
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Space Mobile is doing right now. The block 2 satellites are and
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the block 1 satellites are low band focused and so they can do
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the 600. Excuse me, I've been over a cold
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and I have a drink here. But yeah, those satellites can
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do 600 and 900 megahertz. And then the Block 3 satellites
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which somebody has discussed can do, we'll have closer antenna
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elements and so they'll be able to do mid band spectrum anywhere
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between 1.5 gigahertz to as high as I think 2.42.5 gigahertz.
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And that's going to be the Block 3 satellites, which is the next
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consolation. That consolation will be able to
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utilize any S band spectrum that we've we've either acquired or
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partnered for and then of course legato spectrum.
14:02
And so Starlink can only has only been been allocated 1.9
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gigahertz here in the US it's a 5 by 5 megahertz channel.
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The other thing that so on one hand you know Starlink can only
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focus on mid band spectrum unless they put out an entirely
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new constellation which is possible I guess.
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But the other issue which is really important that they have
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to overcome if they want to do that is they have to have
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dynamic beam pouring that can put fixed cells can beam
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information down on Earth on in fixed cells, meaning as a
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satellite moves the cells that it beams down these little
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hexagons, those have to stay fixed.
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And the reason why that is important is that if you're
14:49
going to reuse cellular spectrum, remember that there is
14:53
a network that's already up and running today on that spectrum.
14:56
So that's terrestrial towers. And so let's just making an
15:00
example. If you are in New York City,
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obviously New York City is well covered by a southern spectrum.
15:04
And so AST space mobile is not going to beam down coverage on
15:07
New York City. However, the our areas, let's
15:11
say on Long Island, let's just pretend like there's a space
15:14
between the Hamptons and New York City.
15:16
There's a big gap of coverage. AST can beam down fixed cells
15:20
and go basically be very pinpoint accurate and not
15:25
interfering with the terrestrial network and putting down very
15:28
specific coverage on low band spectrum.
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And that's what makes AST solution far superior and
15:35
elegant because then for the carriers it can reuse cellular
15:39
spectrum. The carriers can for example,
15:41
decommissioned towers to save money and just have AST beam
15:45
down coverage for areas that need coverage but may not have a
15:49
ton of population where it's not economic.
15:52
Starlink can't do that. Starlink has moving beams.
15:56
I guess the satellites could turn them on and turn them off
15:59
in particular areas. But given that Starlink operates
16:02
at a much higher power level, which causes interference, no
16:06
cellular operator MNO is going to want Starlink anywhere near
16:11
their cellular spectrum. Because the fact that they can't
16:15
put down precise fixed cells, you know, their their cells are
16:19
moving and because they are high power, they cause a lot of
16:21
interference. You're going to degrade your own
16:23
service. So the potential idea that that
16:28
Starlink could even do that one, they need to develop a new
16:31
satellite 2. They actually have to go back to
16:34
the drawing board and develop a a system that can can put down
16:39
fixed cells in a very precise way.
16:41
And so AST today can each satellite can for low band can
16:46
put down, I think it's around 2500 fixed cells.
16:49
And then for mid bands, the mid band spectrum, the, the Block 3
16:53
satellites, because of the way that spectrum works, they'll be
16:56
able to put down about 10,000 pixels per satellite.
16:59
And so those are two important aspects.
17:03
That's why Starlink is focused on buying mid band spectrum.
17:08
You know, they, they acquired Echostar's MSS spectrum.
17:13
And because that's, that's the the area that they're going to
17:17
use. It's what their technology can
17:19
use. You know, eventually what
17:22
they'll have is dedicated bands of spectrum that can beam down
17:26
service to users in or out of cellular coverage, right.
17:31
And so that, that actually, so the key take away here is that
17:34
Apple is testing with AST Space Mobile, if you believe the
17:37
articles, the end of Apple looking at this internally that
17:41
they want to have a seamless satellite coverage from that,
17:47
you know, can operate indoors. There's only one provider that
17:50
can do that and that's AST Space Mobile.
17:52
And so do we see that later this year or maybe there's like some
17:57
leaks that happened that the companies are working very
17:59
closely together? I think it's likely.
18:02
And so that's what I meant by yesterday.
18:04
This is the alpha. Yeah.
18:06
The market, institutional guys, whoever they, they don't
18:11
understand this yet. And it's for the people that
18:13
really drill down into these these filings, the writing's on
18:18
the wall, the puzzle pieces are there.
18:19
And so, so that's the alpha. Like Apple is working with AST
18:24
space mobile, obviously with Verizon and AT&T and and first
18:27
night here in the US and then of course, 50 M and OS globally.
18:32
And so eventually that will become news.
18:34
And yeah, we're just early to it moving on to SpaceX.
18:38
So there was an article from Reuters and it just pretty much,
18:45
you know, covered what we all know, right, which is Elon has
18:50
grand ambitions for SpaceX. He eventually wants to develop
18:54
his own phone and his own service, right?
18:57
And so there's a few things to unpack there.
19:00
And I think it's important one, he can certainly, you know,
19:04
develop his own phone and and that's, you know, I think he'll
19:08
he'll put together a perfectly capable phone.
19:11
I don't know if he'll do that on his own or do it in partnership
19:13
with someone, but anyone who partners with SpaceX will
19:18
ultimately, you know, you're going to get disrupted, right?
19:21
And so partnering with them on the one hand is like a short
19:24
term financial boost on the long term, probably not good for your
19:28
own business. But that said, you know, I, I
19:31
believe that they'll put together a pretty competitive
19:33
phone because there's a lot of people that love that love Musk
19:37
and, and SpaceX and Tesla and you know, there's, there's great
19:41
brands there and, and obviously he's a great innovator and I'm
19:44
sure he'll put together a pretty capable phone.
19:47
That phone, of course, will it run on his own OS?
19:50
Yes, it will. Clearly, if he's developing his
19:54
own AI, he's not going to be, he's not going to want to
19:58
leverage Apple ecosystem or Google ecosystem.
20:03
He's going to develop his own. And that's that.
20:05
This goes back to this whole discussion of the.
20:08
The Elon Musk's vertical stack, like now he's putting all the
20:12
pieces in place where it's going to be this monolithic behemoth
20:16
that competes with everyone else, right?
20:18
And so, and so that phone is going to leverage primarily mid
20:24
band spectrum, right? Because the, and, and there's
20:27
going to be some limitations, but mid band spectrum, meaning
20:30
satellite spectrum here in the US that will work on Starlink
20:36
direct to sell. And as we all know, that
20:39
architecture is flawed, right? Like, for example, you can't do
20:42
voice over LTE. It's got to be VoIP because the
20:45
satellites when you get handed off every two to three minutes
20:49
and your phone's constantly searching for satellites, that
20:53
doesn't make a good environment for voice calls, right?
20:58
But then again, you know, some people, they don't really care
21:00
about voice. I mean, I, I really use my, my
21:04
phone for voice, but that, that service is going to have
21:07
limitations too, because as I mentioned before, either it's
21:10
mid band spectrum, you know, how many satellites can serve a
21:13
specific cell. I don't know if they've
21:14
developed MIMO yet or, or have that put in store and their
21:17
plans. I'm sure they do.
21:19
But that service is going to be pretty choppy and you're not
21:24
going to be able to go into your home and use it.
21:25
And maybe that's OK because you're the must is going to say,
21:28
Hey, you can use Starling fixed wireless and we'll put it, you
21:31
know, you can have that in your house and then you can have the
21:34
Wi-Fi router, you know, service or phone once you go inside.
21:38
But the, the whole idea about buying mid band spectrum, which
21:42
is, you know, Echostar spectrum is that they're going to have
21:45
nationwide coverage just like we are with Legato.
21:48
And so with this, with this new phone, you'll be able to connect
21:54
to Starlink anywhere right now in dense areas.
21:57
The service is the service is probably going to be pretty bad
22:00
because there's, if there's a lot of users using it at the
22:03
same time, then that's not good. But in suburban areas or remote
22:09
areas, the service will be pretty decent for data.
22:12
And so, so that's the idea is that, you know, Musk is going to
22:16
have his own phone, He's going to have his own service.
22:19
He's going to own the customer. And so if you're T-Mobile, you
22:23
know, Seaver, of course now is the former CEO of T-Mobile is
22:28
gone. If you're management at
22:30
T-Mobile, when you see this news, you're like, holy shit,
22:32
what did we just do? Like we're partnering with this
22:34
guy. We've basically introduced the
22:37
the Starlink brand to all of our customers and they have our
22:40
customer information. Now Musk is going to not only
22:43
develop a phone, he's going to develop a service and he's going
22:46
to take our customers like they're the ones who are most
22:48
familiar with them and they probably are going to move
22:50
there. And So what did I just do?
22:52
I like I sold my future to him, but there's limitations, as I
22:56
said, like that, that that service is not going to be good
22:59
in dense areas or areas where there's a lot of people, which
23:02
is quite frankly a lot of places.
23:04
So the next step is that he will and this and T-Mobile will have
23:09
to do this. No, no, because they sold the
23:14
farm and they enabled this. Then they'll they'll be the
23:16
logical player to then just cave on this.
23:19
But, but if I was SpaceX, what I would do is then force T-Mobile
23:23
into an MVNO agreement, meaning, hey, T-Mobile, I'm starting this
23:26
service. I'm going to use your network
23:29
and I'll pay you, you know, roaming fees basically just
23:31
like, you know, Boost Mobile or some of these small, smaller MVN
23:34
OS or Mint Mobile. And So what SpaceX could do is
23:39
they will, or Starlink, they will enter an MVNO agreement
23:42
with, with T-Mobile, just like the cable guys did with Verizon.
23:46
And, and whoever the, the issue, the, the issue with the cable
23:49
guys is that for Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile working with
23:54
cable guys is fine, right? Because I mean, at the end of
23:56
the day, you might get some incremental traffic on your
23:59
network from the cable guys. But we all know that cable guys
24:01
are awful for customer service. And so that's not really a
24:04
competitive threat. However, an X phone running
24:09
Starlink that's branded and you've got a lot of people who
24:12
are, who are big fans of Musk, that's a real competitive
24:15
threat. And so by entering into an MVNO
24:18
agreement, you're, you're pretty much guaranteeing like some
24:20
serious erosion of your own subscriber base, but also, you
24:24
know, your competitors as well. And so if there is this like
24:26
race to the bottom where there might be some of these guys
24:30
might be forced to say, OK, I'll work with you because you're
24:33
going to take share from me anyway, but I might as well get
24:36
some of those dollars back. And so that's why this is like a
24:39
pretty big, pretty big deal 'cause if you're, if you're one
24:45
of these M and OS, it's a, it's a big threat to your underlying
24:48
business, right? And, and it's almost like
24:50
prisoner's dilemma, like who works with him and who doesn't?
24:53
The, the party that works with them is probably going to get
24:55
hollowed out, but maybe they're going to get hollowed out
24:58
anyway. And so from a competitive
25:01
standpoint, this is a, this is a big problem, right?
25:04
And so, but it's not just a, no, no problem.
25:07
It's also a big problem for Apple.
25:09
It's a big problem for Google, for Samsung, like anybody who is
25:12
around the mobile phone ecosystem, this is a huge
25:15
problem, right? So, so for Apple, I mean, we all
25:18
know that Apple's growth and profitability is driven by their
25:22
iPhones. And for Google, like Android is
25:24
huge. The ecosystem that's built
25:26
around that, that's huge too. And of course, we haven't even
25:30
talked about like X or XAI. These are all competitive
25:33
problems. But that said, like this, this
25:36
vertically integrated Elon Musk stack, like it's going to
25:40
attract a number of people, but it's not going to be everybody.
25:43
And so I myself, you know, I have tremendous amount of
25:47
respect for him, but I, I, I'm an Apple person.
25:51
I do have a APC for my, my trading, but I pretty much have
25:56
all Apple products. Like I'm not moving, but but for
26:00
Apple, this is a huge competitive threat, right?
26:03
And so this, I remember the article suggesting that, oh,
26:07
maybe Apple and Starlake are going to work together, that the
26:10
probability of them working closely together is, is at this
26:15
point probably 0, right? Because then that means that
26:19
means that Apple was conceded the hardware business.
26:22
Because if, if X is making their own phone, they're going to be
26:27
coming after your, your bread and butter business, which is
26:31
the, the iPhone, right? And so you're not going to let
26:36
them into, you know, the hen house.
26:38
You're not going to let the fox into the hen house.
26:39
You are going to do everything you can to wall that off.
26:43
Obviously, you have to work together to some degree to
26:46
certify your phone that will work with the Starling DTC, you
26:51
know, network. But beyond that, you're not
26:53
going to be giving them any or doing them any favors, right?
26:57
And so that is a huge competitive threat.
27:01
It's for, for Google and it's for, yeah, for Apple, for
27:07
Samsung. And, and So what the tweet that
27:09
I, I put out earlier that that's why AC space mobile becomes that
27:13
much more critical because then you've got this outside of this
27:19
SpaceX, Tesla, XAI monolith, you've got everyone else.
27:24
And it's not as if like these are all 2 bit players, right?
27:28
These are very powerful companies.
27:30
They're going to be looking to ASD Space Mobile for doing a
27:35
direct to device communications, but they're also going to be
27:39
looking to the company for data centers, right?
27:42
I've talked about this before where ASD Space Mobile is the
27:46
only non prime, non, you know, old school legacy prime.
27:50
It's the only company that's putting together multi ton
27:53
satellites, you know, 456 ton satellites that can generate 100
27:58
kilowatts of energy that have onboard processing.
28:02
I mean, it's it's already doing all the data center stuff today,
28:05
right, But it's doing it for communications.
28:08
However, just moving, you know, re architecting the satellites
28:12
and putting different processors on there.
28:14
I'm sure you've got to make additional modifications, but
28:17
you know, the 3800 patents, you leverage those and you start
28:21
making data centers. And so you become, you know, not
28:25
only is your importance to Apple and Google really high for this
28:31
battle in communications with Elan and, and that includes
28:34
AT&T, Verizon, I mean, every M&O all of a sudden like this, this
28:39
company in Midland, TX is, is now like the Nexus of and at the
28:46
forefront of your battle against, you know, the, the
28:48
SpaceX empire, right, which is data centers, right?
28:52
Data centers in space, you know, if that eventually comes into
28:58
the fore. I, I, I think Elon tweeted this
29:01
morning that there was some interview where he said he
29:05
thinks that we will reach parity.
29:08
And of course, like he's, there's a bit of hype there, but
29:10
he thinks that data centers in space will reach parity with
29:14
terrestrial data centers in three years.
29:17
And I, I think that's very optimistic.
29:19
But but the key take away is like that's where things are
29:23
going. And so ASD space mobile becomes
29:27
that much more critical because it has the technology in the
29:32
building blocks to do that. And we're already working with
29:36
Apple, Google, AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Orange, you name it,
29:42
Telefonica, everybody. And by the way, like all these M
29:44
and OS they all have, they all have fiber businesses, they all
29:50
do data centers, they do hosting all that stuff.
29:52
And so it's not just these like smaller or not, they're not
29:57
small, but these like new data center players, like core weave,
30:00
these MN OS, they all do that stuff too.
30:02
And so I think it's going to take time for the market to
30:05
digest all this stuff. And there's, there's like a, an
30:08
ex user that replied to my post and said, Oh, I, I think AST
30:12
will go down because of this news.
30:14
And, you know, hint, everyone, the entire market is going down.
30:21
Like there's, there's, there's a, there's risk liquidations
30:25
going on. And it's not because of this
30:28
particular news. It's just, you know, cryptos
30:30
getting pummeled. And of course, like the mark the
30:33
market is, is facing, you know, people are deep grossing on the
30:37
institutional side and just causing a cascading effect.
30:40
And so This is why I mentioned earlier today, like do not use
30:43
margin in in periods of high volatility.
30:47
You want to be able to stay in the game.
30:48
Because I've seen a lot of people, whether I mean, you're
30:51
seeing a lot of these stories in crypto where people have amassed
30:54
like a huge nest egg. And then they they continue to
30:57
stay for whatever crazy reason, long leverage Bitcoin.
31:02
I don't. And some of these numbers are
31:03
crazy like 25 XA 100 X. They just completely nuke their
31:07
accounts, right? Not saying that anyone here is
31:10
doing that. But when using margin, use it
31:13
judiciously, use it in a very measured way and have tight risk
31:18
limits. I don't think using margin right
31:20
now is a good idea. And if you do have margin, just
31:25
think, you know, can you survive another drawdown of 10/20/30
31:29
percent? And if you can't, then you need
31:30
to get off a margin. But the reason why I mention
31:33
this is that this news yesterday and today is huge.
31:39
And it, it's the market can't see it, nor does the market want
31:44
to see it. Like right now, everybody is
31:46
just trying to survive. But when things calm down and
31:49
risk comes back into the market, which can happen at any time,
31:54
it's going to be really powerful, right?
31:57
Like just imagine the headlines if maybe in a few weeks or
32:03
months, but if, if it's announced that AST and Apple
32:08
have formed a street partnership or Apple has put in a an
32:11
investment into the company, you know, side by side with Google's
32:15
already existing investment. Like what does that mean for the
32:18
company? That would be, in my opinion,
32:21
that would be game changing. And it's something that we, as
32:27
you know, space mob, we expect that, but market has no clue.
32:33
And so I think, yeah, it's, it's this is big stuff.
32:38
And this is the time when fortunes are made, when, when
32:43
the market is panicking and you're able to stay in the game
32:46
and you, you didn't manage your risk properly because coming out
32:50
of the other side, yeah, for the people that are able to stay
32:55
convicted and hold their positions, that's when that's
32:59
when you make a fortune, right? And so this, we saw this back
33:04
when AC was at $2.00. Obviously there was, there was a
33:07
lot to be de risked back then. That was before the commercial
33:11
agreements with AT&T and Verizon were signed.
33:13
And then of course that unlocked, that unlocked a huge
33:16
wave of like, you know, then the company became financially,
33:22
financially solid. You know, when the stock
33:24
rallied. And, and of course, that's when
33:26
all the military contractors, as we know from presentation that
33:30
Michael Pollack gave, that's when all the, that's when all
33:33
the military, you know, contractors or not contractors,
33:37
that was when SDA, the DoD and a whole host of other folks
33:42
started calling company because they're like, oh, these guys are
33:44
real. And so these are, these are the
33:47
data points, the catalysts that unlock the next missed step
33:51
function of value, right. So if if Apple were to come in
33:55
tomorrow and say we're, we're working closely with AST, we're
33:58
investing, I don't know, a billion dollars in the company,
34:01
that would be game changing. And that's not all the wrong
34:04
possibility. You know, is it going to happen
34:06
tomorrow? I don't know, weeks, months from
34:08
now. I'm I'm not sure.
34:09
But as we all know, we've got a number of other catalysts that
34:13
are we're waiting patiently for. I know people are getting very,
34:17
as we say, stock price rights and narrative.
34:19
I think people are becoming very nervous and like, oh, why?
34:23
Why isn't the company announced unfolding of the satellite?
34:26
Why haven't they done this or that?
34:28
That's and that's coming like unfolding satellite.
34:32
You know, I think we're slated to launch on New Glenn three.
34:34
There is a possibility that it will be the last week of
34:38
February or could slip into the first week of March.
34:40
And the reason why that is, is that you've got Artemis and the
34:45
the crude launch for Falcon 9. And you know, some people ask,
34:49
well, why haven't the batches of Bluebirds been sent down the
34:53
block, 2 Bluebirds. And because of their all this
34:56
traffic that's going on down at the Cape, I think we're probably
35:00
the company's not going to announce anything until the
35:03
processing facility down there is ready to accept those
35:06
satellites. So, but that said, you know, we
35:09
could walk in this afternoon or tomorrow and see that the FCC
35:14
has approved our application for commercial service in the US,
35:17
which is imminent. It could happen anytime.
35:20
And that is a big game changer. So there's a lot of these things
35:24
that are kind of percolating and yeah, it's an exciting time.
35:28
I mean, I think obviously the market having this volatility,
35:32
it's probably hard for some people to stomach.
35:34
But if you know what you own, you're not on margin, you don't
35:38
have to worry about it. And it's just, you know, this is
35:42
I think going back to the last time we had a pretty big
35:46
drawdown was in April during the the tariffs, the tariff scare,
35:50
which ended up being not if you looked back on it, it was not as
35:55
big of a deal as people thought. And it was actually a huge
35:57
opportunity to allocate risk. Yeah, we're, we're seeing that
36:01
right now. And I think as, as Kook said
36:07
during his base over the over the weekend, when you zoom out
36:10
and you look at all the different periods where we had,
36:14
you know, where there was COVID or the tariff scare, or I mean,
36:16
going back to like 2012 and the US was down there, the credit
36:20
was downgraded or I mean, any number of these volatility
36:23
events, you can look back and they were all kind of blips in
36:28
the market, right? And so I think it's important to
36:31
stay level headed and to make sure you know, what you own.
36:35
If there's marginal stuff that you own, you know, that's,
36:38
that's typically, and that This is why it's you don't want to
36:41
have too much of this marginal stuff.
36:43
Because when you do have these type of draw downs, oftentimes
36:46
you don't have the conviction to hold them.
36:47
And then you just take a lot, you sell them, take a loss.
36:50
And and that's, that's kind of the nature of not knowing what
36:53
you own. But anyway, I don't want to keep
36:56
rambling. I do think, as I said before,
36:59
just in summary, the news that Apple is testing with ASD space,
37:03
mobile cellular brands is really important.
37:08
It's something that, and this is another thing the company is
37:11
they don't use the press to leak this stuff.
37:14
They're pretty tight lipped and they just execute.
37:17
And so unlike, you know, SpaceX that will leak a whole tort of
37:22
stuff to try to influence opinion or, you know, trial
37:24
balloons, whatever, the company just does stuff.
37:26
They just do it. And then they, they eventually
37:28
PR it or they continue to just do their knitting, right.
37:31
And so for many years, and I'll be honest, like I think
37:36
2022-2023, once the military stuff started becoming more real
37:41
to us, there were times when I would, I would talk to
37:44
management, I'd be like, Hey, why don't you guys like talk
37:46
more about this? Or if you needed to, you could
37:49
use the press, you could like kind of leak some of the stuff.
37:51
And, and it was absolute like that.
37:54
That's not their DNA. They're not doing that.
37:56
And so I think there's a lot of surprises in store for us.
38:01
And the company is, I think, you know, they're respectful of
38:04
whatever they're doing with Apple, They're not going to leak
38:06
it. And if, if something does come
38:09
of it, then it'll get, it'll get disclosed at the right time.
38:13
And so that's important. As I mentioned, Apple is looking
38:17
for an, you know, they, they're, they've disclosed that they want
38:20
to have a, a broadband, A seamless broadband service that
38:23
mimic cellular. And that's ASD.
38:25
It's not Starlink, it's definitely not global star.
38:28
And so that's one important take away.
38:30
And then #2 the fact that SpaceX is developing their own phone
38:35
and they want to develop their own service, that is a huge
38:37
competitive issue for the entire existing ecosystem.
38:44
And for some people, they're like, Oh yeah, that's great.
38:46
Disrupt all of them, which, you know, good competition is good.
38:50
But for Apple, Samsung, Google, even the Chinese phone makers,
38:56
and then all the M and OS globally, they've got to figure
38:59
out who do they partner with? And there's only one company,
39:02
it's ASD Space Mobile. And it's, it's for
39:04
communications, but it's also for this, the future, which is
39:09
data centers in space. And so, you know, ASD is a
39:14
logical candidate to work with the companies ramping up to
39:17
production of 12 satellites a month.
39:20
Eventually once the constellations are up, that
39:22
production is going to be there, it's already there and they'll
39:26
need to start producing something else.
39:27
And what other thing, you know, multi ton satellite with
39:32
processing all the power heat, the heat radiating technology,
39:38
What other thing can you do? Data centers is, are data
39:41
centers that different than what you're doing today?
39:42
No, they're actually pretty close.
39:45
So I wanted with that, a lot to think about.
39:48
And yeah, everyone stay calm. It's going to be pretty volatile
39:53
day and perhaps this is going to be, you know, we might have
39:57
additional days like this. But yeah, as long as you know
40:00
what you own, you can be pretty comfortable.
40:02
I'm not stressed. I don't think you should be
40:04
either. And we'll make it through
40:06
anyway. I'll do another space maybe.
40:09
Maybe tomorrow, maybe this afternoon or whatever.
40:12
But yeah, this is exciting news, good for your investment.
40:16
And just in the back of your mind, keep that if you're if
40:20
you're stressed because the stock price is down, just remind
40:22
yourself like, why do you own this?
40:24
What's the opportunity? What has changed?
40:26
Has anything changed? Actually, yeah, a lot of good
40:29
stuff has just come out since yesterday and yet the stock
40:31
price is down. If you have cash and you want
40:34
additional, you know, exposure, then if you, if you loved it at
40:37
120, you'll, you'll, I'm sorry, if you liked it at 120, you'll
40:40
like it. You'll love it at 98.
40:41
But I'll end it there and we'll talk again soon.
40:44
Take care everyone. Numbers old, too good to be
41:02
true. Will it work?
41:09
We don't have a clue, Lily. Always.
41:15
We will be there soon, swinging for the stars, the earth and
41:21
moon, the whisper through the static hits.
41:29
We love the risks. Yeah, we love the risks.
41:45
We love the risks. We love the rich Bloomberg sword
41:57
connect the world fortunes rise and see some birds.
42:03
We hold the line through the fear and bliss 'cause we're the
42:09
marble space. We we love the rich tears of joy
42:25
from our first call. Reaching light, connecting all
42:38
hills and seas where no tower stand, Connecting voices in
42:44
forgotten lands. Each day feels like a bluebird's
42:49
kiss, a journey to Leo. With this we love the rest.
42:58
We love the rest. Bluebird stars connect the
43:08
world. Moscow's rise and see some
43:11
birds. We all ride through the fear and
43:14
bliss cause where the marbles stay.
43:22
We we love the rich right, the spectrum chase the beam, never
43:39
foolish in earth Hold, hold, hold only that time we love the
43:51
richest. When?
43:54
When? Connect the world, fortunes rise
44:05
and sea jumpers we hold the line through the fear and bliss
44:12
'cause we the marble space, we we love the rich. 3
44:55
21 We love the risk. Thanks for listening to the AST
45:07
Space Mobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and
45:11
you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with
45:13
others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and
45:17
review. To catch all the latest news
45:19
about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe.
45:23
Thanks again and I'll see you next.
45:24
Time. We're doing something very, very
45:30
big and I think with this technology we can really affect
45:33
billion. Lives AFT.
45:34
Space Global is the only company that has good technology to
45:39
deliver several global connectivity directly to the
45:42
state to do everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn
45:46
their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
45:49
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
45:52
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
45:56
reality, always in partnership with the enemy.
46:05
Listen, Waffles.