Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - The FCC Greenlight: AST SpaceMobile’s Watershed Moment

Transcript

Anpanman - The FCC Greenlight: AST SpaceMobile’s Watershed Moment · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:07
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 0:09
  We. Just basically come your phone
• 0:12
  and be seamless. But regardless of where you are,
• 0:15
  we don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
• 0:17
  satellite, satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
• 0:22
  have is very, very, very large. Everyone, thanks for joining on
• 0:29
  what is a beautiful sunny day here in New York.
• 0:32
  Although it is a little chilly, but what an amazing day.
• 0:37
  What a complete emotional roller coaster.
• 0:41
  I for what it's worth, I sent Scott when is Wisniewski a text
• 0:45
  message and gave him Congrats and he agreed that the last few
• 0:49
  days has has been an absolute roller coaster of emotions.
• 0:54
  So, you know, going down to Florida, celebrating with all
• 1:01
  you folks of the Blue Origin, New Glenn three launch of
• 1:05
  Bluebird 7. And then of course, you know,
• 1:09
  the rocket being successful, the first stage, second stage, of
• 1:12
  course having a failure and then we lose our satellite.
• 1:15
  And you know, everyone went into this stage of mourning and
• 1:20
  depression. And and then of course the
• 1:22
  market opens and you know, the stock was down, but it fought
• 1:25
  its way back. And, you know, I think everyone
• 1:29
  pretty much accepted that this is just part of space.
• 1:31
  And, you know, we, we, we took our lumps on the chin with the
• 1:36
  view that nothing about the thesis has changed.
• 1:38
  And if anything, I think I, and I fully believe this.
• 1:41
  I think it losing a satellite for Blue Origin and ourselves
• 1:45
  was a galvanizing event. I think it's going to motivate
• 1:49
  folks at both companies to work even harder to make sure that
• 1:54
  this consolation for ASD Space Mobile and for Blue Origin, New
• 1:58
  Glen, you know, 77 by 2 and 9 by 4 will be successful.
• 2:05
  And so, so yeah, we, we, you know, I, I truly believe like we
• 2:09
  look back a year, 2-3 years from now, we will say, man, that was
• 2:14
  a Seminole event. You know, that that's going
• 2:16
  through that adversity. Just like when the stock was at
• 2:19
  $2.00, it forged a lot of bonds between people and, and, you
• 2:25
  know, there's nothing quite like going through that level of
• 2:27
  difficulty and emotional strain and coming out of it on the
• 2:31
  other side and reaping the rewards.
• 2:34
  Those types of friendships, they're, they're incomparable,
• 2:37
  right? Because you, you, you, you get
• 2:39
  tested in terms of your mental resolve to the absolute limits.
• 2:42
  And a lot of us, Stanley, you know, faced financial ruin at
• 2:46
  that point. But we held with conviction and
• 2:49
  we came back and we didn't just come back.
• 2:51
  We didn't just like go from 2:00 to 10:00, you know, we went to,
• 2:55
  I mean a peak recently 128 and and that's going to be a new low
• 2:59
  $128.00. That's going to be a 52 week low
• 3:02
  at some point once we get back there.
• 3:05
  And so, yeah, what a crazy journey.
• 3:11
  I, I was joking with someone today that perhaps the FCC
• 3:14
  decided to grant us the application, which is what I'm
• 3:17
  going to talk about. But they maybe they decided to
• 3:19
  do that because they, they saw that we knew how to deorbit a
• 3:22
  satellite properly, which is a concern for all these
• 3:26
  applications. But anyway, the big news putting
• 3:30
  them the my preamble side is that the FCC has granted us full
• 3:36
  US commercial active. This is a tremendous event.
• 3:39
  This is something that's been in the works for many years.
• 3:43
  It's something that, you know, we were told as investors it
• 3:48
  would not happen by all the haters and doubters, whether
• 3:52
  they were industry consultants like Tim Ferrar.
• 3:57
  You know, some of these Anon accounts.
• 3:59
  I mean, I'm an Anon account, but free speech, who else is there?
• 4:02
  I mean, there's a whole litany of these, these clowns.
• 4:05
  And then of course, like all these legacy satellite players
• 4:09
  who from the outset, I remember Alan Gottlieb, Charles Miller of
• 4:16
  Links, you know, they're, they're all these people writing
• 4:18
  these articles. This was like back in 2020-2021
• 4:22
  about how a Bell and his engineers didn't know what they
• 4:25
  were doing. The satellite was going to melt.
• 4:27
  We couldn't, we couldn't make a link budget.
• 4:29
  I mean, any number of things. They, they just injected so much
• 4:33
  fun. And then, you know, obviously
• 4:34
  the direct advice market, it's niche.
• 4:36
  No one's going to care because, you know, these legacy guys and
• 4:40
  their paid consultants, they had the most to lose.
• 4:43
  They had their backs against the wall, you know, for radium.
• 4:47
  We always joked that Matt Dash, you know, I that company, once
• 4:52
  they were, you know, generating cash, it was really a financial
• 4:56
  engineering machine. You know, they, they use that
• 4:59
  cash to pay out dividends and buy back stock, but they never
• 5:02
  reinvested in something new. They didn't, you know, they
• 5:04
  have, they have valuable spectrum, but they never put up
• 5:06
  a new consolation. They just kind of sat there
• 5:09
  telling trollers they were going to buy back stock and lever up
• 5:12
  the company until this little player ASD space mobile came
• 5:16
  along and everyone called a bell fool.
• 5:18
  And and you know, he's like, well, I'm going to create these
• 5:21
  massive satellites with high power, large phase arrays and
• 5:25
  I'm going to connect to everyday cell phones and that's going to
• 5:28
  be a game changer. And from a Bell's point of view,
• 5:30
  like the key was to connect the unconnected and go out to, you
• 5:37
  know, his, his mission was to go out to a majority, you know, a
• 5:41
  large part of the population of the world who didn't have any
• 5:43
  connectivity, whether that's fix connections or, you know, mobile
• 5:47
  connections. But to really bring broadband
• 5:51
  connectivity to those underserved areas and lift
• 5:54
  people out of poverty, which meant bringing Internet, which
• 5:58
  which then, you know, you bring financial services, education,
• 6:01
  health, all kinds of things. So we all know what the benefits
• 6:04
  are of having Internet connectivity.
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  And so that was a primary mission.
• 6:10
  And then, of course, the mission expanded where you, you know,
• 6:15
  the, the with the consolation, obviously, you know, addressing
• 6:18
  the US market was was critical to that.
• 6:20
  And then and then we expanded into these defense applications
• 6:23
  as well. But apologies for the noise
• 6:26
  here. I'm actually at soccer practice.
• 6:27
  But yeah, here we are. I mean, through all that hate
• 6:31
  and FUD and doubters, you know, you name it.
• 6:35
  And short sellers, Oh my God, the short sellers were the
• 6:37
  worst, right? For they, they were the ones who
• 6:39
  try to contort and distract and put out all kinds of, you know,
• 6:46
  basically bullshit to starve the company of capital so that it
• 6:50
  would fail and they would profit from its, from its bankruptcy.
• 6:54
  But they lost. They got their asses handed to
• 6:56
  them, right? And So what today's FCC
• 6:59
  approval, what it means is, is true validation, right?
• 7:03
  So we've gone through this regulatory review process for
• 7:07
  four to five years. And yes, it took a really long
• 7:12
  time. And the FCC in granting these
• 7:15
  things, they don't take it lightly, right?
• 7:16
  Like it's, this is part of the regulatory mode.
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  It's not as if any company can come in and it doesn't matter
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  how big the company is. Like you have to go through this
• 7:24
  process. You have to prove your
• 7:26
  technology, you know, from regulatory perspective, you know
• 7:30
  what you're doing and you know, risk mitigation.
• 7:35
  I mean, there's all these things that kind of come into play.
• 7:38
  And so it's not something that is granted lightly, right?
• 7:41
  And so we have this validation. It's a valuable grant where we
• 7:46
  can put up a constellation of 248 satellites to provide
• 7:49
  directed device broadband. And that's valuable.
• 7:52
  Like even if ASD for some reason does not exist tomorrow, having
• 7:57
  this, this is is valuable where even other companies would look
• 8:02
  to potentially acquire it because it is a true asset,
• 8:05
  right? And so, but having this, this,
• 8:09
  this granted is, you know, it's a key point of validation for
• 8:13
  the company. And it's something, for example,
• 8:15
  you know, Kevin Chen just pointed out that the $45,000,000
• 8:20
  that was part of the pre commercial prepayments from
• 8:24
  Verizon that just got unlocked due to this this grant.
• 8:28
  Also, I believe First net, you know, there probably were some
• 8:32
  conditions precedent that, you know, that we would get in order
• 8:37
  for our contract with Firstnet to be to go into the fact which
• 8:41
  we don't know what the economic terms are, but we know that it
• 8:43
  exists. My guess is that we'll find out
• 8:47
  that it is going to now go definitive, right?
• 8:51
  Because now we have FCC approval.
• 8:53
  Obviously a Firstnet would not want to enter into a contract
• 8:56
  with us without FCC approval. But now that we have it, I'm
• 9:00
  guessing in the next few days or so.
• 9:01
  You know, we always joke imminent that's going to happen.
• 9:05
  And so this is a yeah, this is a tremendous milestone.
• 9:09
  The other thing is that the FCC is considered kind of the gold
• 9:14
  standard from a regulatory perspective across the world.
• 9:17
  And so by us getting full FCC approval, that actually opens up
• 9:26
  regulatory approvals like across the world, right, Because we're
• 9:28
  not some small company based on the Midland, TX.
• 9:31
  We actually are, you know, the leading, you know, we created
• 9:35
  this market. We, we have the, the
• 9:38
  technological lead. And from regulatory perspective,
• 9:42
  other regulators around the world are going to come to the
• 9:43
  US and say, talk to chair Carr, talk to the FCC and, you know,
• 9:47
  ask them questions about AST space or not, because, you know,
• 9:51
  we already have the the grants. And so they will use that as a
• 9:54
  template or, you know, it's kind of like you're already pre
• 9:57
  approved around the world. Like if you have AUS passport,
• 10:00
  you can kind of travel anywhere. That's kind of what this is akin
• 10:03
  to where from a regulatory perspective this is going to
• 10:06
  ease things significantly, right.
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  And So what could have taken long in these other
• 10:12
  jurisdictions is just going to make it that much easier.
• 10:16
  And so I don't, I don't not sure like how much the market fully
• 10:21
  appreciates this. And perhaps it'll take a few
• 10:23
  days and obviously we're still kind of recovering from what
• 10:27
  happened over the weekend. But this I, I think for those of
• 10:31
  us who have been falling the company for many years, this is
• 10:34
  a true watershed event. This is game changing now from a
• 10:39
  regulatory perspective, we don't have to keep going back to the
• 10:41
  FCC to, you know, when we, we have approval rules right now
• 10:45
  for 25 satellites before, you know, before this grant.
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  But had we not had this grant, we would have had to go back and
• 10:52
  get St. as you know, a special temporary authority for like
• 10:55
  another 10 satellites, another 10.
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  Now we can just launch the satellites like it, that's it,
• 11:01
  that's it. Like we can build, we can build
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  456070 up to 248 and go, just go throw these up there, right as
• 11:10
  as our friend Kevin Mack like to say, we can go go throw a metal
• 11:15
  up there. And so this is, this is huge,
• 11:18
  right? Like we don't have to keep going
• 11:21
  back to the FCC, wait for the bureaucracy to turn things
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  around. Like, you know, we're open for
• 11:28
  business. We can, we can build satellites
• 11:29
  and go launch them. And so this is for the Block 2
• 11:34
  satellites. And so obviously, you know, when
• 11:36
  we get to a point where I think the company is planning to
• 11:41
  towards the end of this year, we are probably going to start
• 11:44
  building Block 3 satellites. That will be a separate,
• 11:48
  separate application. That said, it will be easy given
• 11:52
  that we have this in place and, and clearly the FCC has
• 11:55
  demonstrated confidence in, in what we're doing.
• 11:58
  I mean, going back to what Chair Carr said in the interview
• 12:02
  during the Amazon Global Star deal, he talked about that, you
• 12:06
  know, hoping that there would be a three player market, which
• 12:09
  would be Starlink, ASD Space mobile and, and Amazon.
• 12:13
  Obviously, you know, I've, I've talked about this before, but
• 12:16
  Amazon Global Star that that transaction is going to rely on
• 12:22
  Global Star's NDA space consolation for the next,
• 12:25
  actually for the forseeable future, maybe the next three to
• 12:27
  four years. And so it's unclear what
• 12:31
  Amazon's going to do for the next, during next generation
• 12:35
  satellites. You know, perhaps maybe they'll
• 12:37
  get something going in 20-30. But but yeah, I mean, at this
• 12:41
  point, it's the company's market right now.
• 12:44
  I mean, Starlink has 600 and 51st generation direct to sell
• 12:48
  satellites. It's going to take them probably
• 12:51
  till 2029 to get V2 going. And that that satellite in of
• 12:56
  itself is going to be perhaps maybe comparable in some ways,
• 13:00
  which I mean, you have to be seen obviously Starling to make
• 13:04
  a lot of claims. But then the proof will be in
• 13:05
  the pudding. But they're hoping to catch up
• 13:07
  to what we're doing right now in our current generation.
• 13:10
  And as the Bells laid out, you know, the current Block 2
• 13:13
  satellites already at launch talked about getting performance
• 13:16
  above 150 megabits per second per cell and has talked about
• 13:22
  AAI optimization helping them to tiger things to get 3X
• 13:28
  performance near term and potentially up to 11X
• 13:30
  performance over the long run. And so, yeah, I mean, it's not,
• 13:36
  it's kind of funny because like you hear these skeptics who say
• 13:39
  that that Starlink is going to crush us, but this company,
• 13:42
  they're not. They created the market, they've
• 13:45
  got the technological lead and they're not sitting on their
• 13:46
  ass. Like we've already got several
• 13:50
  generations of designs already on the, on the, you know, on the
• 13:54
  plans and we'll be executing on those.
• 13:57
  And so it's not as if, and this is a great thing about vertical
• 14:00
  integration. You can iterate very quickly,
• 14:02
  right? I mean, we just going back to
• 14:05
  the composite shells, having to strengthen those after the
• 14:09
  company tested and figured out that the shells were not strong
• 14:13
  enough for vertical sacking, we fixed it.
• 14:15
  We retrofitted the ones we had and then we created a new design
• 14:19
  for the next 7 satellites that we were building.
• 14:23
  And that's what it takes when you, when you're vertically
• 14:26
  integrated, you can make these quick adjustments, right?
• 14:28
  And, and improvements. And so it'll be, it'll be quite
• 14:32
  scary to see where the Block 2 satellites are in terms of
• 14:35
  performance once the, once the ASICS are incorporated and these
• 14:40
  optimization techniques are in place.
• 14:42
  And, and I, I mentioned this in another space.
• 14:45
  I mean, I did ask, I did ask the company, you know, hey, we lost
• 14:49
  BB7. Is there, is there a need or
• 14:51
  interest to build another one and go launch it?
• 14:54
  And the response was that no, because BB7 was a backup to BB6.
• 14:58
  But more importantly, that design is old.
• 15:01
  They've actually, I was told that they moved on to the next
• 15:05
  generation satellite for SDA. So I don't know what number of
• 15:11
  satellite that's going to be, but sorry for all the sirens
• 15:14
  here. But you know, it, it just shows
• 15:17
  like the company is innovating, right?
• 15:18
  Like they're not, they're not sitting by idly and letting the
• 15:22
  market, you know, catch up to them.
• 15:24
  They're they're leading the market and they're creating even
• 15:26
  more space between them. And so, yeah, what a what an
• 15:31
  amazing, pivotal, you know, event here.
• 15:35
  I mean, I think I think, yeah, just just thinking about all the
• 15:42
  years of heartache and like wondering from a regulatory
• 15:45
  point of view if we were ever going to get to this point.
• 15:47
  And, you know, we got to we got to I I know from a political
• 15:50
  perspective, maybe folks aren't, you know, they may not agree
• 15:55
  with this current administration, which is totally
• 15:56
  fine. And we we're all Americans and
• 15:58
  we can agree to disagree and have different political point
• 16:00
  of views. And and Brendan Carr is a is a
• 16:03
  certain type of, you know, he's he's he's a unique FCC chair.
• 16:06
  I'll say, I'll say, yeah, I've, I've seen, you know, and I
• 16:09
  invested under many different FCC chairs and, and Brandon Carr
• 16:12
  is unique. But what I will say is this guy
• 16:16
  gets shit done. I mean, you may not agree with
• 16:18
  him politically, but in terms of cutting red tape and trying to
• 16:23
  enhance competition and really push forward American companies
• 16:26
  to lead globally, I don't I don't know if we could have
• 16:30
  asked for a better FCC chair. And so I think one thing I would
• 16:34
  ask people to do is even if you don't agree with him
• 16:36
  politically, which is totally fine, I, I would give him props
• 16:40
  and a shout out for bringing this application and
• 16:44
  encouraging, you know, competition and really driving
• 16:49
  innovation and leadership. Because I think I don't think he
• 16:53
  gets enough credit. And, and honestly, like for
• 16:56
  especially like a very visible group of people like Space Mob,
• 17:00
  I think it's important to, you know, pat our regulators on the
• 17:04
  back and, and, you know, give them, give them their props
• 17:06
  when, when they actually do the right thing and, and move, move
• 17:10
  innovation forward, which is what happened today.
• 17:12
  And so, but yeah, I, I think, yeah, I'm, I'm beside myself.
• 17:18
  This is, I know, I know there's probably people out there, maybe
• 17:21
  Kevin Mack will say like, oh, it's priced in the market.
• 17:24
  Sure, it's probably priced in to some degree, but I, I don't
• 17:27
  think I, I think this is a true, you know, about validation event
• 17:36
  and, and people, you know, those people who may have dismissed
• 17:40
  AST in the past. There, there's no way around
• 17:42
  this. And, and so I mentioned, you
• 17:44
  know, I, I tweeted, it's going to be very fun and entertaining
• 17:50
  to see the, the mental contortion in gymnastics of
• 17:55
  these bears and the, the, these, you know, whether it's Tim
• 17:59
  Ferrar or, or some of these other supposed industry
• 18:03
  consultants who are, by the way, paid by Global star and Iridium
• 18:05
  to basically throw shit out. How are they going to spin this?
• 18:08
  My guess is that Tim Farrar will just like retweet the FCC.
• 18:14
  You know, whoever tweets like the full approval, he'll just
• 18:16
  retweet it, but he's not going to comment on it because the guy
• 18:18
  looks like a complete ass, like he has been completely wrong
• 18:24
  this entire time. And there's just, there's like
• 18:26
  no negative way to spin this. I mean, I, I am looking forward
• 18:30
  to any potential creativity where he's going to try to find
• 18:33
  some portion of the application where maybe they didn't get some
• 18:38
  part approved or maybe it's kind of up in the air, or maybe it's,
• 18:41
  I don't know. He's just going to try to spin
• 18:43
  it negatively. And but that's his brand, right?
• 18:46
  And he's just a, he's an awful human being and, and so are the
• 18:51
  rest of these guys. But anyway, yeah, what an
• 18:54
  amazing day. I'm sure the, the space talk
• 18:59
  weekly. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk
• 19:01
  about it this evening. And yeah, I, I don't know, let
• 19:06
  me just look at the comments here.
• 19:09
  There probably aren't as many. Someone's asking to what degree
• 19:12
  do we think this was priced in? It was probably priced in.
• 19:16
  And you know, we've been talking about it for, for a really long
• 19:19
  time, but I don't know, that's a good question.
• 19:21
  I mean it, it probably has been priced in to some extent, right?
• 19:27
  I mean, the fact that Chair Carr last week said it's a three
• 19:30
  player market, which by the way, like for anyone who thinks that
• 19:34
  going from a duopoly to a potential, you know, oligopoly
• 19:38
  of three players, that's still a really great market from an
• 19:42
  economic standpoint, right? I mean, just look at the US
• 19:45
  wireless carriers, but I would argue that Amazon is not, well,
• 19:50
  Amazon am Starlink there. Starlink has a has a minimally
• 19:54
  viable product today, but neither of them are broadband
• 19:57
  and neither of them are going to be broadband for the foreseeable
• 19:59
  future. So it's really just a monopoly
• 20:01
  at this point. But even if it does devolve into
• 20:05
  a an oligopoly, like that's going to be good.
• 20:07
  So, so yeah, but let's see. But in terms of, you know, how
• 20:12
  much is pricing, it was probably pricing to a degree, but we'll
• 20:15
  see. I mean the market, there's going
• 20:16
  to be APR that comes out from the company.
• 20:18
  If you were going to be writing about this, who knows?
• 20:21
  I mean, what's not priced in is a a ton of institutions in
• 20:26
  retail who have no idea who AST Space Mobile is, who who then
• 20:29
  will learn about the company. You know, obviously that the
• 20:31
  negative negativity from the Blue Origin losing the AST Space
• 20:36
  Mobile satellite like that actually brought some attention
• 20:38
  and awareness to the company. This is going to do it.
• 20:40
  So from that perspective of bringing potential new investors
• 20:44
  that that part's not priced in. So, so we'll see someone asking
• 20:48
  is the satellite 248 satellites for US or worldwide commercial
• 20:51
  use satellites by their very nature are for worldwide use.
• 20:56
  And this this consolation is built to serve M and OS
• 20:59
  globally. So this is for worldwide.
• 21:01
  However, the US application is specifically for the US, which
• 21:05
  is the most profitable market in the world, but also being
• 21:09
  domiciled here and being AUS company, we need that FCC
• 21:13
  approval because that also allows us to operate worldwide.
• 21:18
  So, so it so it is, it is global.
• 21:22
  But yeah, we will when serving other markets like Sacco who
• 21:29
  who's operating in in Europe, we will need to get separate, you
• 21:33
  know, regulatory approvals from Europe to operate.
• 21:36
  Obviously that was it 2 weeks ago, we got the the final step
• 21:42
  to the final step UK approval from Ofcom to operate there.
• 21:46
  I believe there's one more, there's one more process that
• 21:50
  has to take place where we get full approval, which is why the
• 21:53
  company didn't PR that just yet. But that's coming I believe in
• 21:55
  May. And so by the way, like people
• 21:58
  talk about, hey, there's no catalyst coming.
• 22:00
  We just had one dropped out and there's a lot more coming.
• 22:03
  And so and there's stuff that we as space mob, believe it or not
• 22:07
  with all the due diligence that we don't even know yet or
• 22:10
  haven't seen. So, yeah, let me look, we're
• 22:15
  what does this approval mean for debt financially wise?
• 22:19
  Better rates, more institutional interest.
• 22:21
  This approval is it unlocks a bunch of business.
• 22:27
  Obviously, you know, the, I think the first net contract is
• 22:30
  going to, is going to go hard at some point, you know,
• 22:33
  definitive. And so when you have these
• 22:37
  definitive commercial agreements with real economics, then you
• 22:40
  can, if you want, you can raise debt against that.
• 22:42
  You can do all these different things and yeah, it brings
• 22:46
  institutional awareness. People who might have dismissed
• 22:50
  AST, that's a science project. They don't have approval for a
• 22:53
  full consolation. Oh, wait, hold on.
• 22:56
  They have approval for a full consolation like it's real.
• 22:58
  And and they're launching their service this year and what I
• 23:03
  from two or three years ago when it was like at a developmental
• 23:06
  phase, now they're actually putting up the consolation and
• 23:09
  the writing service. That's a very different story to
• 23:11
  underwrite for investors. And so when we talk about DE
• 23:14
  risking getting full FCC approval for U.S. market access
• 23:18
  for a 248 satellite consolation, that's about as DE risked as it
• 23:23
  gets in terms of, you know, the regulatory process, right?
• 23:26
  And so that does change the game and it becomes a very different
• 23:31
  story that institutions, you know, if you have some that are
• 23:36
  more risk averse or even retail investors, you know, more risk
• 23:40
  averse, this, this de risks the story quite a bit.
• 23:43
  And so I think you'll see quite a bit of demand from perhaps
• 23:46
  folks that were sitting on the sideline.
• 23:49
  Let's see, company has to PR this surely.
• 23:51
  Yeah, there's going to be APR my guess.
• 23:56
  And I would hope that they just they they don't PR it this
• 23:58
  evening. I think they should PR it first
• 24:01
  thing tomorrow morning, hit the news wires where everybody's
• 24:05
  awake having their coffee and and, you know, people go to
• 24:09
  town, right? And I'll goes pick it up.
• 24:10
  I mean, whatever. I'll give you PR right now.
• 24:13
  People are unwinding at home. And, you know, it's just zealots
• 24:17
  like us that are doing AX space. So maybe they'll wait.
• 24:23
  Let's see. Your voice is super upbeat.
• 24:27
  Yeah, I'm, I'm pumped. I'm pumped, man.
• 24:29
  Like, this is this is nuts. So let me see.
• 24:34
  More questions here, but yeah, I like I said, this is an absolute
• 24:42
  emotional roller coaster to go from the agony of defeat, of
• 24:47
  losing your satellite, you know, celebrating, seeing folks I
• 24:52
  haven't seen in a long time meeting new Space Mob members,
• 24:55
  singing a bell. Scott, Michael Pollock, Chris
• 24:58
  Ivory. I even saw Dave Marshak getting
• 25:01
  on a bus and I took a picture of them and then he told me to, to
• 25:05
  contact him. I told him.
• 25:06
  And I was like, hey, I'm the guy that leaked your video, your,
• 25:11
  your due diligence video. And he laughed and, and you
• 25:14
  know, we, we had to chuckle about that.
• 25:15
  But yeah, to to go from meeting everybody and, and having a
• 25:22
  successful launch to losing our satellite unfortunately, and
• 25:24
  then kind of having to deal with all the negativity and, and the
• 25:28
  haters who we're trying to spend however they could, you know,
• 25:34
  this this past weekend's event as negative and that somehow AST
• 25:38
  are responsible for it going through that.
• 25:40
  And of course, seeing the stock rebound, you know, going from
• 25:43
  $70 low overnight to to closing at 81.
• 25:49
  And then, yeah, getting walking in today on Tuesday for full FCC
• 25:56
  approval. And by the way, like, like I
• 25:58
  mentioned before, this is a, a huge regulatory MO for the
• 26:01
  company. Like this is not something that
• 26:05
  perhaps startups or other companies are looking to enter
• 26:07
  the market. They're going to have to go
• 26:09
  through the same process. Now, is it going to take five
• 26:11
  years? Probably not.
• 26:14
  Because, because back when AST came up with this idea and they
• 26:18
  pushed forward the, the, they pushed this forward, the
• 26:22
  regulars were like, oh, is, are you, Are you sure?
• 26:24
  Like what is this? Is that, is that possible?
• 26:26
  Does it work? And which is why partially why
• 26:27
  it took so long. And so they've blazed a path for
• 26:31
  for others, right? Like I think maybe other
• 26:34
  companies who potentially want to enter this market, it might
• 26:37
  be a bit easier, but it's not going to, it's not something
• 26:39
  that you can like file and expect approval overnight.
• 26:43
  It's going to it's something that takes years, right?
• 26:46
  And so anybody who is not an industry contemplating to do
• 26:50
  this, that's part of the uphill battle that that they face,
• 26:54
  right? And so, but anyway, but yeah,
• 26:58
  this this is a tremendous event. I, I can't under score how
• 27:01
  important it is from the company in terms of, you know, its
• 27:07
  business prospects. And, and obviously, you know,
• 27:10
  other regulators around the world and M and OS too are going
• 27:13
  to look at this and say, oh, this is serious.
• 27:15
  Like we're this is a real player.
• 27:18
  The FCC is fully behind it. And we saw this, by the way,
• 27:22
  like the fact that the FCC was filing on behalf of the
• 27:25
  companies to the NTIA for spectrum coordination.
• 27:28
  I mean, little signs were there, right?
• 27:30
  I mean, nothing was ever fully guaranteed, but but yeah, here
• 27:35
  we are. And by the way, so maybe I'll
• 27:38
  shift topics a little bit just to just to talk about it.
• 27:42
  I did say Guten tag and in the beginning of this space, because
• 27:46
  we did see some like pretty interesting news.
• 27:49
  Bloomberg reported that Deutsche Telekom is potentially looking
• 27:53
  to reconsolidate and take, you know, basically buy out the
• 27:56
  minorities and bring back in T-Mobile, which would make it a
• 28:00
  fully foreign entity, which there's there's a lot of funny
• 28:04
  things about this because well, first the head of regulatory
• 28:08
  affairs are at SpaceX, Dave Goldman, this guy in trying to
• 28:15
  object to ASD speak mobile's consolation, which, as we can
• 28:18
  see, he failed because he tried to slow down and tried to, you
• 28:22
  know, throw throw sand in the gears and and stop this process.
• 28:25
  But guess what we got approval. So fuck that guy.
• 28:28
  Yes, I cost but anyway, but one of their arguments was that AST
• 28:36
  was working with foreign M and OS and that's I guess maybe
• 28:40
  somehow they weren't to be, they were not to be trusted.
• 28:43
  And then, you know, they talked about how perhaps, you know,
• 28:47
  the, the we had there all these like retail meme stock people
• 28:51
  who were trying to influence the process.
• 28:52
  I, I forget exactly. I got to pull up their, their
• 28:54
  filing. But what really stuck out to me
• 28:56
  when he when, when he and his, his group went after AST with
• 29:01
  some of these arguments, was that the AST oh, sorry, in, in
• 29:05
  the regulatory docket for SEC approval for full commercial
• 29:10
  access. You know, AST had a number of 4
• 29:14
  Nominos, Vodafone, Orang Rakuten, I mean, you know, quite
• 29:18
  a few number of their speed partners around the world
• 29:22
  commented on how directed device is a critical service and that
• 29:25
  they fully supported approval. And Starlink Pooh poohed that
• 29:29
  they were like, well, these guys who are foreign companies, they
• 29:32
  should not have any say and no in undue influence over what's
• 29:36
  going on in the US and that I think that was their angle.
• 29:39
  And then of course, it, it was funny because T-Mobile at that
• 29:43
  time and currently is, is, you know, through, through high
• 29:49
  votes is controlled by deutsche.com.
• 29:52
  Economically, I think deutsche.com owns like 45 or
• 29:56
  something just below 50%. But from a voting perspective,
• 29:58
  they, they fully control T-Mobile.
• 30:00
  So it was just funny that star, you know, SpaceX took this tact
• 30:05
  of trying to point out foreign influence when their biggest
• 30:08
  customer, their marquee anchor customer is a German company
• 30:11
  operating in the US. And if you talk to like some
• 30:14
  conservatives and, and I guess now some like ultra liberal or
• 30:18
  ultra left wing folks, like they all question why Deutsche
• 30:23
  Telecom owns, you know, all the spectrum of the US through
• 30:27
  T-Mobile. Like is that a national security
• 30:28
  risk? And you know all that, but it's
• 30:31
  just funny. And now that if Deutsche Telecom
• 30:34
  does acquire T-Mobile, then you've got a fully 100% German
• 30:38
  owned company that's going to be working with Starlink here in
• 30:41
  the US. And so those arguments, and this
• 30:43
  is, This is why you have to be super careful in what you argue
• 30:47
  and, and what you lay out in terms of lobbying efforts at the
• 30:50
  FCC, because you've got to be super clean in those in those
• 30:55
  arguments, because they can always come back and bite you.
• 30:58
  And right now we're about to see that.
• 30:59
  We're about to see the arguments that SpaceX laid out about
• 31:03
  foreign influence. Yeah, They're, they're, they're
• 31:07
  their anchor customer, their marquee customer T-Mobile T
• 31:11
  satellite powered by Starlink is going to be German owned.
• 31:16
  And so that's that's going to be, I mean, there's, there's
• 31:20
  that, that's hilarious to me. But more importantly, the CEO of
• 31:24
  Deutsche Telekom during Mobile World Congress, I think it was
• 31:28
  out in Barcelona, they did announce a small deal with
• 31:32
  Starlink to provide T, you know, Starlink service direct to sell.
• 31:37
  I mean, I think most of that deal was focused on fixed
• 31:40
  wireless. But then they did announce this
• 31:42
  direct to sell partnership with Deutsche Telekom, but that
• 31:48
  partnership wasn't going, is not supposed to kick in until 2028.
• 31:51
  And the reason why that is, is that the current generation of
• 31:54
  direct to sell satellites that Starlink has have an inability
• 31:59
  to beam down accurate cells on the ground and, and of course
• 32:04
  they have interference solutions too.
• 32:05
  And so Europe, which is, which obviously has small countries
• 32:10
  that have very complex borders, those current satellites do not
• 32:13
  work and cannot work in the European context.
• 32:16
  And so Deutsche Telekom announced this deal with
• 32:19
  Starlink, but then, you know, not until 2028.
• 32:21
  And of course in Starlink time 2028 probably means like 20-30.
• 32:26
  So they need the V2 satellites to actually work in Germany.
• 32:30
  And so when people were interviewing the CEO of George
• 32:32
  Telecom and said, hey, we saw you and you did this, this deal,
• 32:36
  he didn't, he didn't roll punches back.
• 32:38
  He said, well, you know, Alan's not a very popular guy in
• 32:41
  Europe. And so he needs us from a
• 32:44
  political perspective. But then also, you know, they've
• 32:47
  got the only, you know, service available today, which is true.
• 32:52
  However, if there are other providers that can that offer
• 32:56
  better service in Europe, we will, we will use other
• 32:59
  providers. And then he ends, he ended, you
• 33:01
  know, some of those quotes by saying, you know, we're not
• 33:03
  dumb. We know that we're basically,
• 33:05
  you know, dealing with a tiger when we're, you know, we're
• 33:08
  doing business with Elan because everyone knows that eventually
• 33:10
  Elan wants to get into the mobile phone business in terms
• 33:14
  of being an M&O, well, actually providing hardware and being an
• 33:17
  M&O. And so at the other day, like
• 33:20
  any M and OS that are working with Starlink, you're, you're
• 33:22
  basically, you've brought in the Trojan horse, you're giving them
• 33:25
  your customers and you're giving them free marketing, which is,
• 33:30
  you know, for Starlink, they are a direct to consumer business
• 33:33
  where they sell satellite terminals to your home to
• 33:37
  provide Internet. And then eventually they want to
• 33:39
  provide some type of mobile service to, to your directly
• 33:43
  right, cutting out M and OS. And they might be able to do
• 33:46
  that if they become a virtual network operator, you know, they
• 33:50
  enter in some type of partnership with, with a
• 33:52
  terrestrial provider to use their network and then, you
• 33:55
  know, they directly sell it to you.
• 33:57
  But anyway, I don't want to get to go down that rabbit hole, but
• 34:01
  I think it's important. And I, I pointed this out today
• 34:04
  that if deutsche.com takes over T-Mobile, I think T-Mobile
• 34:08
  working with Starlink, which that that relationship, the
• 34:14
  exclusivity ends this summer. I think that actually becomes a
• 34:18
  jump also the way. So I'm like T-Mobile could be
• 34:22
  T-Mobile slash storage telecom could be a relationship that AST
• 34:25
  could, could actually win. And it's crazy to say it.
• 34:31
  And I've, I've talked about this multiple times where I I never,
• 34:33
  I never thought Verizon would join AT&T and working with AC6
• 34:37
  mobile, but it, but it happened like I thought that was like not
• 34:40
  even a zero chance. There was like a negative
• 34:42
  chance, if that even makes sense.
• 34:44
  But, but now Deutsche Telecom, who clearly is, is wary of
• 34:49
  working with, with Starlink, You know, is there a scenario one
• 34:54
  day where they could work with AC space mobile?
• 34:57
  And obviously, like Verizon and AT&T are going to have a word
• 35:01
  and say and, and, and if that's possible, and if those two
• 35:04
  parties say no, we don't want to let them in on it, then, then
• 35:07
  that's the end of the story. Like it's not going to happen.
• 35:09
  But in a world where Elan is, is buying, you know, spectrum, mid
• 35:14
  band spectrum, which obviously is not good for terrestrial
• 35:17
  coverage, but it's great for data.
• 35:19
  You know, he's spending $23 billion.
• 35:21
  He's going to go into the AWS 3 auction to try to buy more.
• 35:25
  This guy is going to be, you know, he's going to be trying to
• 35:30
  build a competitive, you know, wireless service and that's got
• 35:36
  to give every M&O around the world some level of pause.
• 35:39
  And so I think in a scenario where T-Mobile were to go to
• 35:43
  Verizon AT&T and say, hey, look, man, let me work with you guys
• 35:48
  and not contribute some spectrum in the mid band and we can all
• 35:53
  use it together. And, and maybe, I don't know,
• 35:55
  maybe I'll just get less favorable economics.
• 35:57
  So I'm not contributing low band spectrum, but let me in.
• 36:00
  And then at Verizon AT&T say, no, we're not interested.
• 36:03
  We, we're going to take your subscribers.
• 36:05
  Then T-Mobile could say, well, if you don't let me in, then
• 36:09
  what I, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take us all to
• 36:11
  hell. I'm going to, I'm going to
• 36:13
  enable Starling to become a full-fledged wireless operator
• 36:18
  by letting them be an MVNO and, and basically lease terrestrial
• 36:23
  capacity for me. And just like Mint Mobile or you
• 36:26
  know, some of these, these basically marketing brands.
• 36:28
  But I'm going to let swirling do that.
• 36:29
  And yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to lose customers of them.
• 36:33
  And, but, but I'll make back some of the economics by
• 36:35
  obviously getting a wholesale agree with them, but then also
• 36:39
  taking, getting wholesale revenues from the subscribers
• 36:41
  they take from you AT&T and your Verizon.
• 36:44
  And in that scenario, I think that's where AT&T and Verizon
• 36:46
  could, and this is all high stakes, by the way, but that's
• 36:49
  that's scenario where AT&T and Verizon could say, well, you
• 36:51
  know what, let's let these guys in because we don't want, we
• 36:55
  don't want to have to deal with Starlink as a potential
• 36:57
  competitor on the mobile phone side, which obviously has
• 37:01
  implications too around fiber, 5G, home, which, you know,
• 37:06
  Starlink competes with all of them today.
• 37:08
  But that could be a scenario where they actually let them in.
• 37:12
  And so the news today, this all goes back to the news today.
• 37:16
  If George Telecom does try to merge, you know, bring back in
• 37:21
  T-Mobile, then I think that Starlink relationship becomes
• 37:25
  even more precarious. And so, yeah, I, I don't this,
• 37:30
  this, the market's not pricing, which by the way, like back in
• 37:36
  May of 2024 and everyday prior to that, the market did not
• 37:41
  price in any amount of potential that Verizon would, would step
• 37:46
  in and join AT&T and working with AST mobile And the stock,
• 37:51
  you know, was trading at what 5 and and then rallied to 39 over
• 37:56
  that summer. And that was primarily I, I
• 37:59
  would say, yeah, they primarily all of it was driven by the fact
• 38:02
  that AST went from owning 1/3 of the US market to owning 2/3 of
• 38:07
  the market and working with the two largest, most regible
• 38:10
  carriers. I mean, putting T-Mobile aside,
• 38:11
  right, T-Mobile is always been viewed as kind of the lower end,
• 38:15
  the lower end, but Maverick type of player.
• 38:18
  So just imagine like if T-Mobile joined AT&T and Verizon and AC
• 38:23
  locks up 100% in the US market, what would that do?
• 38:26
  What would that do in the stock price?
• 38:28
  And of course, like put that on top of the fact that we've got
• 38:30
  SCC approval. And yeah, I mean, I, I, I can't
• 38:35
  imagine, I, I, yeah. So I, I guess, yeah, you, you
• 38:40
  picked the number, it's probably too low, right.
• 38:43
  So anyway, I'm going to look at there's a lot of comments now
• 38:50
  let's see here. Yes, let's see Eddie Garcia,
• 38:57
  once FCC approves every other Ford agency is claimed to do so
• 39:00
  provides the top cover. That's correct.
• 39:02
  That's 100% correct. Let's see here, someone saying
• 39:09
  every, they're joking. Everything is pricing except
• 39:11
  when a SAT goes down, people think it's going to take 50%.
• 39:14
  Yeah, those people were absolutely wrong.
• 39:16
  By the way, this guy's back man. He, he had, he had gone through
• 39:20
  a rational analysis and came to the conclusion that stock would
• 39:23
  probably be down. And once everything kind of
• 39:25
  settled at 3 1/2% and he was absolutely right.
• 39:27
  Because like losing 1 satellite and the grand scheme of things,
• 39:29
  it pushes your timeline back a little bit.
• 39:31
  But when looking at a reasonable DCF valuation, it doesn't really
• 39:37
  take much off, right? And you, and by the way, like
• 39:39
  when you lose that one satellite, you lose some time if
• 39:42
  you can ramp. And, and I know it's the
• 39:45
  company, it's been taking a long time from their ramp production,
• 39:48
  but if they can catch up and, and exceed what they were, you
• 39:51
  know, what they were planning to do, then you can get that value
• 39:54
  back. But the key thing is in his
• 39:58
  post, he was saying based off of, you know, losing that one
• 40:00
  satellite, he was like, maybe you'll have like a 3 1/2% market
• 40:03
  reaction, ended up being 5. And then you saying maybe you'll
• 40:07
  drop, you know, down to 70. Was it 73 was announced?
• 40:12
  No 74 and we actually went to something 3 1/2 intraday
• 40:16
  yesterday. But but yeah, just like I've
• 40:19
  been kind of talking about for the last few weeks, like don't
• 40:22
  listen to these doom axers, like these people who are engaging,
• 40:25
  trying to get you to engage. And especially these these like
• 40:29
  snake oil salesman who we'll come in and just like shit all
• 40:33
  over AST and say, well, you're what you're invested in and it's
• 40:36
  it's got problems, but you should just go buy this other
• 40:38
  company, which is great. It's the best thing since I
• 40:40
  spread like, guys, come on, we can see through all that shit.
• 40:43
  We've we've like been through this for five years.
• 40:46
  Like you're trying to pitch some other company in in, you know,
• 40:50
  trying to prey on vulnerability of like the company going
• 40:52
  through a negative event. Come on, like at least try
• 40:57
  better do something else. Try a different boy.
• 40:59
  Like it's not going to work. But anyway, let's see.
• 41:05
  Someone's saying this approval helped to build a price floor.
• 41:08
  Yes, that's right. That's absolutely right.
• 41:10
  Having full regulatory approval is highly valuable.
• 41:13
  And as I mentioned before, even if AST decides to shut down
• 41:16
  business tomorrow, they could sell, someone could acquire AST
• 41:20
  in order to get the valuable SEC approvals for this specific, you
• 41:25
  know, consolation. Obviously they would modify it
• 41:26
  2°, but there's a ton of value in that Let's see here someone
• 41:36
  saying can't believe after all these years, the highs and lows
• 41:39
  this week are insane yes, absolutely that's that's
• 41:41
  correct. It's been an A total emotional
• 41:45
  roller coaster. That's what makes investing fun,
• 41:48
  right? It's like the lows suck and you
• 41:50
  and you, you suffer and and, you know, grit your teeth and and,
• 41:56
  you know, do that hopefully with like other friends who are
• 41:58
  invested, but then that just makes the highs that much
• 42:01
  sweeter. And and today, yeah, I'm I'm on
• 42:04
  cloud 9. Let's see here is the cussing
• 42:12
  ANPA man a leading indicator? I don't I don't often cuss, but
• 42:17
  but I guess I I do sometimes, but yeah, yeah, someone's saying
• 42:22
  don't hear infant excited too often, usually calm, recently
• 42:25
  stressed out, but now happy. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm elated,
• 42:29
  man. This is, this is amazing,
• 42:31
  especially after again, like going through the loss of BB7,
• 42:36
  kind of going through that, that the seven, the seven stages of
• 42:40
  of, you know, whatever it is like cope and depression to have
• 42:44
  this is just just absolutely amazing.
• 42:48
  Anyway, I, I've I think my my kids soccer practice is about to
• 42:52
  end, so I might end the space here.
• 42:56
  I'm going to try to join stock weekly tonight, but but I'm not
• 42:59
  sure the schedule. So I know, I know we'll be well
• 43:02
  covered by middle space mod member, but maybe I'll try to
• 43:06
  fire space up later this evening if I'm not in stock weeks, stock
• 43:09
  talk weekly, but I'll try to join.
• 43:11
  But but yeah, everyone crack, crack open a doctor Pepper and
• 43:15
  memory Steve Larrison. Have a beer, get whatever
• 43:19
  favorite drink you want. You know, everyone just take a
• 43:24
  step back and take a breath and just enjoy this moment because
• 43:27
  this is this is huge. This is I, I can't emphasize how
• 43:32
  important this is, what this means for the company and the
• 43:34
  business. And yeah, I whether it was
• 43:39
  priced in, in terms of, you know, this, that actual stock
• 43:43
  price or mentally it doesn't matter.
• 43:46
  Like there's nothing quite like if, if you, if you're expected
• 43:49
  to win a championship and then you and, and you know, leading
• 43:53
  up to that, everyone expects it. But then when it actually
• 43:55
  happens, there's nothing quite like it, right?
• 43:57
  And so, so again, I think everybody should just, yeah,
• 44:00
  just just soak it in. I hope, hopefully the company
• 44:03
  doesn't PR to this evening, they wait for the morning to just
• 44:07
  drop it on, on everybody. I hope that's the case.
• 44:11
  But but yeah, there's going to be a lot of ink written about
• 44:13
  this and future regulatory approvals from different
• 44:17
  jurisdictions and, and a lot of commercial business being
• 44:19
  unlocked. This is great.
• 44:21
  So I'll end it there. And everyone, thanks for
• 44:24
  joining. We'll talk again this evening
• 44:27
  probably at 8:00 PM. And yeah, looking forward to
• 44:32
  everyone's takes and, and again, looking forward to some of the,
• 44:36
  the bears takes as well. I, I can't wait to see the, the,
• 44:40
  the mental gymnastics and, and the negative narrative that
• 44:43
  they're going to try to spend on this, which quite frankly, like
• 44:46
  there's nothing negative about this.
• 44:47
  This is just unbelievably positive.
• 44:49
  So take care everyone. Thanks for joining and
• 44:53
  congratulations man. They call us pumpers, call it a
• 45:09
  man. They were delusional, chasing a
• 45:12
  dream. But we got news for every short
• 45:15
  that's short. We are the space mine.
• 45:18
  We hold forward every crumb of day to every weekly meet.
• 45:22
  We know what's coming. We know the heat, the paid lie,
• 45:26
  and we see it clear. But we believe in what we're
• 45:30
  building here. Sea Booster, YouTube
• 45:34
  Billionaires Club. Sea Booster.
• 45:39
  We don't connect the unconnected.
• 45:45
  That's the plan. Satellite the soldiers with the
• 45:48
  space mob clan Sea boosters future billionaires club Sea
• 45:53
  boosters future billionaires club.
• 46:02
  Abel's leading got the vision right.
• 46:04
  Golden Dawn coming. Missile defense fly.
• 46:07
  First responders always on the line.
• 46:10
  Government contracts. Watchers climb.
• 46:13
  Callers clueless callers code. But we know the truth.
• 46:17
  We know the result. Everyone wins when the space
• 46:21
  might win. That's where the future begins.
• 46:23
  Has deep boosters. Future billionaires clues.
• 46:33
  Has deep boosters. We don't need your Rd. connect
• 46:42
  the unconnected dance, the plan satellite.
• 46:46
  The soldiers will face my clan hasty booster YouTube
• 46:51
  billionaires club. We see what's true.
• 46:57
  While the first fade we breakthrough space coming.
• 47:02
  We'll need this FT booster future billionaires club FT
• 47:13
  booster we don't need your rubber.
• 47:16
  The unconnected plan satellites and soldiers will face my planet
• 47:27
  FT booster future millionaires club FT booster future.
• 47:59
  Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 48:02
  If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
• 48:05
  podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
• 48:08
  media, or leave a rating and review.
• 48:11
  To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
• 48:15
  sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 48:17
  next time. We're doing something very, very
• 48:23
  big and I think with this technology we can really affect
• 48:26
  billion lives. AFT Space globally is the only
• 48:29
  company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
• 48:33
  broadband connectivity directly from space to do everyday
• 48:37
  smartphone. People will just basically turn
• 48:39
  their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
• 48:43
  We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
• 48:45
  satellite. Our role is to bring this into
• 48:49
  reality, always in partnership with the MMO.
• 48:58
  Listen, Waffles.