Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - The Cusp of the Launch Campaign

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Anpanman - The Cusp of the Launch Campaign · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:10
Where we just basically turn your phone be seamless
0:14
regardless of where 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
Hey everyone, thanks for joining.
0:28
What an exciting time. I know obviously the market's
0:32
been quite volatile, but we are pretty much at the doorstep of
0:38
some big, you know, catalysts that are coming up for ASD Space
0:42
Mobile in particular, we've got Bluebird 7, which is likely
0:46
going to launch next week. And so I wanted to fire up a
0:50
space and talk about a few updates around AST and also talk
0:55
about Black Sky as well. But but yeah, it's an exciting
0:58
time. It's a beautiful sunny day out
1:01
here in New York City and you can definitely feel that spring
1:05
is coming. And similarly, I feel like we
1:08
are now we are finally after much, you know, a, a, a delay
1:14
and, and much waiting and patience.
1:16
Of course, we're on the cusp of this massive launch campaign.
1:20
And so so yeah, it's an exciting time.
1:23
And I think, you know, obviously there's macro has been
1:27
dominating the headlines. At first we were everyone was
1:30
focused on AI and then of course the Iranian conflict.
1:35
But for space, space names, especially in the US, the
1:40
environment hasn't changed. If anything, the environment has
1:42
gotten better for these companies, especially in light
1:45
of the SpaceX IPO, which is barreling along, which I think
1:50
ultimately will get done sometime in June.
1:53
And so that's going to bring more eyeballs and attention and
1:56
awareness to the sector. I mean, it already has started.
2:00
And so, yeah, it's an exciting time to be an investor in AST
2:04
and any number of other companies.
2:07
But let's start with the with the launch campaign update.
2:10
And so as people have seen, there's there's informal
2:15
websites that are now discussing a potential launch date for a
2:20
Blue Origin New Glenn on either April 15th or April 16th.
2:24
Obviously it's been pushed back quite a bit for those that it
2:28
seems like ages ago, there's a don't remember Bluebird 7 was
2:34
actually delivered to Florida back in December.
2:38
And so, you know, due to delays at Blue Origin in terms of
2:43
refurbishing, never tell me the odds, you know, the, the booster
2:48
that took longer than expected because this is the first time
2:51
that they've refurbished it. I think there were a number of
2:53
mistakes that did happen, which they're learning.
2:55
And from those mistakes, as in any program, you're going to get
3:00
better from those learnings. And so now we're on the, you
3:03
know, now we're in the homestretch of, of, of that
3:08
rocket being mated with its payload.
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And I believe, you know, we should see, you know, Blue
3:15
Origin had tweeted out that never tell me the odds is being
3:21
mated with the New Glenn 3, New Glenn 3 upper stage.
3:26
And then of course, the the payload, which is AST Space
3:29
Mobile's Bluebird 7. I know that there's been some
3:32
talk about, you know, whether putting a dummy payload to make
3:36
sense versus the actual payload. And in this case, they're
3:40
looking for a very quick turn around.
3:42
And so once the static fire happens, which is probably going
3:47
to be two to three days before the actual launch, then they're
3:51
just going to keep the rocket out there, refuel it and it's
3:54
going to be all systems go as opposed to then bring the rocket
3:59
down and, you know, taking off the dummy payload and putting
4:02
the real payload on top. And so, so that's going to be
4:05
kind of the order. And I think, you know, due to
4:10
the launch be on April 16th, there is a chance I will be able
4:13
to make it down. So as soon as we get a
4:15
confirmation of that, fortunately there's a ton of
4:17
flights from New York down to Orlando, I'm going to see if I
4:22
can pull it off, you know, the family obligations, hopefully we
4:27
can get some help. And, you know, my wife is
4:29
actually going to be gone over the next few days on a trip with
4:34
a friend. And So what was previously going
4:37
to be a potential launch date of the 11th, I wasn't going to be
4:40
able to make. But if it's going to be on the
4:42
16th, I may try to come down, stay overnight, or I may just
4:47
fly in and out depending on when they're planning to launch this
4:50
thing. So I think it's going to be a
4:53
tremendous event. I mean, this is going to be Blue
4:55
Origins, you know, third launch and the first time using reusing
5:00
a booster. So and then of course, you've
5:02
got Bluebird 7 on top. And so this is going to be a
5:05
tremendous, you know, occasion, which I think many of us have
5:08
tried or or will be trying to get down there.
5:11
And so if I am able to go, I'll love to meet other people.
5:16
I think Coop is going to try to make it as as well as a few
5:19
others. And so yeah, looking forward to
5:23
that. And so yeah, we that's going to
5:24
be kicking off launch campaign. And obviously we've got as I've
5:29
discussed in the in previous space, you know, we've got an
5:33
upcoming batch that's almost ready for those that missed the
5:36
space where I discussed it before.
5:39
You know, the company had run into some issues around the
5:43
structural integrity of the composites.
5:45
And so when stacking these things, when we're testing them,
5:49
the, the rings as we'll call them deposit rings, you know,
5:53
when putting vertical pressure, horizontal pressure and then
5:57
also angled pressure, I think they were not seeing the
6:00
performance that they wanted to in the first round of
6:03
composites. And So what they did is they,
6:08
they modified them and included additional reinforcements, which
6:11
then those rings were able to pass testing.
6:15
And then once you once you're comfortable with the rings, then
6:20
you put the folded microns, the tail and then the other parts of
6:25
the payload into that ring. And then once that's done, you
6:29
have to then do environmental testing, right?
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And so from what I understand, the stacking was solved sometime
6:35
in February, my guess is late February.
6:37
And then what they did is they they went back and reinforced
6:43
the rings that they had on hand. And then the, the, what they
6:49
learned from that, they actually are changing the design and
6:52
reinforcing the structure at the point of production.
6:55
And so they, they won't have to like retrofit the rest of these
6:58
rings. But performing.
7:00
You're saying, you know, the first batch is on target to be
7:02
delivered in April or to be shipped in April.
7:05
I'm not sure exactly if it's shipped or delivered, but they
7:09
will be ready. And due to some eagle eye due
7:13
diligence from some of the Reddit community, there was a
7:18
there was a picture taken of one of the shipping containers that
7:21
was on the road heading to Midland.
7:23
And so from what we know, there are several containers that are
7:29
on site that are ready to accept Bluebird 8910, you know,
7:36
depending on what batch size they want to go send.
7:39
But there are containers that are ready and it looks like, you
7:43
know, potential shipment of those satellites is imminent,
7:48
right. So whether that's in a week's
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time or two weeks time, you know, we'll see.
7:52
But but it looks like everything is pointing towards an April
7:56
delivery. And what you know, if you
7:59
extrapolate that out, that's probably pointing to the first
8:04
Falcon 9 launch in May and then there's probably going to be a
8:07
second one shortly thereafter, potentially in the same month or
8:11
maybe in June. And so you're starting to see
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some of these informal websites that track launches start
8:19
putting placeholders for those 2 Falcon 9 launches.
8:22
And, and yeah, so the I, I will say I, I had caught up with the
8:28
company, I think it was like 2 weeks ago and they feel
8:31
confident in 45 their, their target of 45 by end of year.
8:35
And so that's still a very valid milestone for them.
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And with that, you'd have to assume that there's going to be
8:43
a sprinkling of, you know, some new gland launches as well,
8:46
which if you look at, you know, the post recently by David Limp
8:51
of Blue Origin, they're firing on all cylinders, right?
8:55
Like they're, they've got a number of second stage boosters
9:00
that are already ready and tested.
9:02
And obviously the the another booster, first stage booster
9:08
that's ready as well. And then they're also building
9:11
out from some, you know, some intelligence that was
9:16
crowdsourced on Twitter, it looks like they're actually
9:18
building out another launchpad down the Florida 'cause they're,
9:22
they want to have the ability to go beyond what I believe the
9:26
current lock pad. You might be able to do like 2
9:28
to 3 launches a month from the current one.
9:32
They want to expand the, the ability to raise cadence
9:36
further. So maybe double that, maybe like
9:38
6-6 launches or so a a month. And so by building out a second
9:43
launchpad, it'll enable you to do that.
9:47
So, so yeah, everything's looking great.
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I joked about this before, but there's actually some people
9:54
thinking about buying property in Cape Canaveral, but you know,
9:59
buying a house 'cause there's going to be a ton of these
10:01
launches. And so maybe economically, it
10:03
might make sense, right, to to buy a place if you're going to
10:07
go down there quite often and watch these launches.
10:10
I'm not at that point, but I'm certainly going to try to fly
10:15
down as often as I can to watch these things and visit our
10:17
friend Steve Larrison, who is buried, overlooked, buried there
10:23
overlooking the launchpad. So, yeah, no, we're in an
10:27
exciting time. I'd expect once the company has
10:31
full confidence and confirmation, they will announce
10:36
the formalized, you know, formal launch date and they'll be some
10:41
type of process where people can sign up and and attend the
10:46
formal event. But then for those that aren't
10:50
able to get that, then they're obviously, you know, you can
10:55
still see launch from a number of vantage points within a
11:00
several mile radius of launchpad.
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So if you're not able to get invitation, you should still go
11:06
because it's going to be amazing.
11:08
And I'm sure people will be meeting up at various venues
11:11
around just to hang out with fellow space mob people.
11:15
But but yeah, so that's, that's a quick update on launch.
11:19
The other topic I didn't want to cover is this idea of T-Mobile
11:23
potentially joining AST Space Mobile.
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And first of all, I'll just caveat this by saying I think
11:29
it's a low probability. You know, is it a 5%, ten
11:33
percent, 15% probability? I'm not sure, right.
11:36
Like it's it's definitely a non 0% probability and there's some
11:41
bread crumbs pointing to the possibility.
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And just in terms of the competitive dynamics, there's a
11:47
whole host reasons why, first of all, it wouldn't make sense, but
11:51
then there's almost as good of reasons why it does make sense
11:54
and it should happen. And so I'm not here telling you
11:58
like it's definitely going to happen, but but I think it's, I
12:02
don't know, maybe a 20% chance, 30% chance it could happen.
12:05
And that's that's pretty good odds, right?
12:08
And so why do we feel this way, right?
12:10
So there's a number of things that recently kind of point to
12:14
the potential, you know, so Catsy, there was some recent
12:20
filings with the NTIA, which is the governing body that kind of
12:25
coordinates spectrum globally. And so through the FCC, the FCC
12:30
makes these filings on behalf of companies.
12:33
The FCC did file T-mobile's spectrum bands for ASD Space
12:37
Mobile at the NTIA, which is a very odd thing to do.
12:41
I don't quite know why you would do that.
12:44
I guess perhaps for future compatibility or maybe you know,
12:51
I was just trying to think through it like in situations
12:54
where Starlink is unavailable and you have a natural disaster,
12:58
then I think the FCC will want AT&T and Verizon and vice versa,
13:03
T-Mobile to be able to use the competitors satellite service in
13:08
case of some type of natural disaster.
13:12
Because I think we saw some of this.
13:13
Where was it 2° out in New Zealand?
13:17
They said, you know, very specifically when they were
13:19
talking about why they chose AST Space Mobile over Starlink, they
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said, well, you know, in the, in the unfortunate case that there
13:29
is a natural disaster, your, your mobile phone in New Zealand
13:32
will cycle. If you're on the competitors
13:34
network who uses Starlink, you try to make a phone call.
13:39
We all know that you cannot do a phone call on Starlink's network
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because it doesn't support that natively and it's a roaming
13:46
network and throughput is just not there.
13:50
Your phone is going to fail in that call when you try to dial
13:53
their emergency number, which is not 911, but it's 111 there.
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When you dial 111 there on your phone and it doesn't work, then
14:01
it will start cycling through other carriers.
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And this is kind of for, you know, for emergency services,
14:07
right? And so it will ultimately, if
14:10
it's not international coverage for two degrees, it will
14:13
ultimately try 2°. But then of course, 2° is
14:16
working with ASD Space Mobile. So when you do that 111 call on
14:21
your phone in New Zealand, it will then go on to the ASD Space
14:24
Mobile network. And so that's one kind of, you
14:31
know, use case where I think maybe that's why the FCC would
14:34
file T-Mobile spectrum bands to work with ASD Space Mobile at
14:38
the NTIA because maybe for emergency services, but it could
14:42
also be highlighting something that's in being in discussion or
14:46
could be for the future, right? And so why are these bed crumbs
14:51
important? And you know, if it's, you know,
14:55
it's not saying explicitly that they're going to work together,
14:58
well, these bread crumbs sometimes can lead to and can be
15:02
indicative of something in the future if that is going to
15:05
happen, right? And so the reason why I
15:07
mentioned that is I did a post on this before, but let's go
15:11
back in time in, excuse me, in 2021, I remember looking at AST
15:20
Space Mobile's investment deck and you know, they're partnered
15:22
with AT&T and I thought, oh, great.
15:24
You know, like they're partnered with one of the, the, the most
15:28
profitable and largest wireless carriers in the world in the
15:30
most profitable market. AT&T is probably looking at this
15:33
like the iPhone moment and what iPhone did for AT&T when they
15:37
had the exclusivity for five years.
15:39
Because AT&T back then once they did have this agreement with
15:44
with AC Space Mobile where they would have, I think it was if
15:48
you look at the old agreement, it would be 5 years exclusivity
15:50
once the service launched. And so for me, I was like, wow,
15:55
AST Space Mobile is going to be kind of like the iPhone for
15:58
AT&T. They're going to be able to go
16:00
out in their marketing campaign and say, we have 100% broadband
16:04
coverage no matter where you are.
16:06
And that's going to be super valuable, right?
16:08
Like they're going to be able to go pick up Subs from Verizon and
16:12
T-Mobile. And so this is, and then that
16:14
was, you know, that was the light bulb that went off in my
16:16
head where I was like, this product is going to be very
16:17
valuable because even though it's going to be primarily used
16:23
in areas where there's not terrestrial coverage, the
16:26
ability from a marketing perspective to tell people that
16:29
you have the absolute best coverage.
16:31
Like remember the hear me now guy for Sprint or Verizon, I
16:36
mean, any of these, these these wireless companies, it was
16:41
always about coverage, right? And so back then I thought, oh,
16:45
well, AT&T, this is a great valuable service.
16:48
They're going to take stops from competitors.
16:49
You can be able to reduce churn. And so it made sense.
16:52
And then, and you know, that was the, the framework of thinking
16:56
where, OK, AT&T has exclusivity, they're not going to allow AST
17:01
to work with anyone else. But then in 2024, I remember
17:05
still thinking like, there's no way, definitely no way T-Mobile
17:09
would work with AST, Norwood, Verizon in AT&T, even if AST
17:13
wanted to, AT&T would not allow it.
17:16
But then I remember Cat C had found some of these FCC filings
17:21
and, and Kook as well where the FCC was kind of hinting that AST
17:28
should work together with Verizon.
17:30
Because in order to get contiguous spectrum, you, you
17:36
probably needed some partnership between AT&T and Verizon to make
17:40
that happen in the 850 megahertz span.
17:42
And there were some bread crumbs right in these FCC filings where
17:45
it's like you can't do the service unless you get
17:49
contiguous spectrum. And Verizon, they have some of
17:52
the spectrum that you don't have.
17:54
Maybe it makes sense to work together.
17:56
And that was like the interpretation that you could
17:58
read from it. And I remember very specifically
18:03
Cook and Katzie tell me like, Hey, I think, you know, they
18:05
should work together with Verizon.
18:08
Like it's going to happen. And I I remember telling both of
18:11
them like, you guys are out of your mind.
18:13
There's no way AT and TS going to allow it.
18:16
Why would they let a competitor in?
18:20
You know, Verizon at that time, by the way, Verizon was telling
18:23
the market, you know, hey, we don't see value in this.
18:25
You know, it's a small nichy thing and they were trying to
18:28
play downplay it, right? And they were also at the FCC
18:31
complaining like, and by the way, like whenever a company
18:34
complaints at the FCC about another potential service, that
18:38
means they find it threatening like it's a it's a real problem,
18:42
right? And so that was very telling
18:44
too. But anyway, but Fast forward to
18:47
January, obviously the company was raising strategic capital
18:50
and you want to, I actually talked about this with a few
18:53
Space Mob folks this morning, but that was like the painful
18:57
January, right? That was when ASD announced in
19:00
the morning that they had did a strategic convertible raise,
19:06
which was good with AT&T, Vodafone and this new partner
19:09
called Google. And so the stock shot up, I
19:12
think it was like $3 and a shot to like 550 and it, it was going
19:17
up and, and people were excited. And then of course, the press
19:19
release came right after that, which I don't think was on
19:22
purpose. The company apparently tried to
19:25
do this at the same time, but the press releases for a reason
19:28
didn't come out at the same time.
19:30
There was like a few minute delay.
19:31
But then they announced that they were doing an equity
19:32
offering of $100 million, which they had to do because they had
19:36
to bridge. We learned later, they had to
19:39
bridge what ultimately was Verizon joining as well, right?
19:43
Because Verizon was in the middle of due diligence and they
19:46
needed more time. And so the stock went from like
19:49
55560 and went down to like 3 or so.
19:53
And they finally priced that deal like 325.
19:54
Imagine like the company selling 30 million shares at 3 bucks to
20:02
get to raise $100 million. Whereas most recently, and that
20:05
was like significant dilution, right?
20:08
Because the market cap is very small.
20:09
I think the dilution was like, I want to say like 15 or 20%.
20:15
It was pretty big, right? And but you need to.
20:18
You need to raise money to make money like, and sometimes when
20:21
your backs against wall like that's what happens.
20:23
And, and I think that at that point the company, even though
20:27
AT&T, Vodafone and Google put money in, people were just at
20:32
that point, they were kind of, you know, fed up or whatever.
20:35
And so Fast forward to May was when, you know, AT&T signed
20:41
their definitive commercial agreement, which shouldn't have
20:44
been this surprising anyone, but they did.
20:46
And and, you know, the stock rallied to like 5 the five
20:49
level. And then magically a few days
20:52
later, Ryzen announced a strategic investment, a
20:57
contribution of very valuable inner 50 megahertz spectrum.
21:01
And yeah, the strategic partnership, it wasn't a
21:04
definitive commercial agreement yet that was to come, but they
21:07
announced that and the stock rallied 69%.
21:10
You know, it went up to like 9 bucks and change.
21:16
And then it peaked that summer at like 38.
21:19
Intraday was like 39. And, and so imagine my surprise
21:24
that that day when, when they announced Verizon and that AT&T
21:29
and Verizon were working together, I was like beside
21:32
myself. And I remember, you know, as, as
21:35
people know, I, I called Kook that morning.
21:38
I'd bought some shares and you know, the stock was like still
21:42
hovering in the sixes and Kook was like, where's the stock
21:46
trading? And you know, first I called him
21:49
and I was like, you will not believe what happened.
21:51
Hell is frozen over like Verizon is working with AST.
21:54
And I was like laughing hysterically like this is the
21:56
most insane thing. And and Kook, of course, media
22:00
was like, where's stock trading? And I told him, oh, it's a in
22:03
the sixes or it was a high fives or sixes.
22:05
And then he went out there and just ripped, I think he bought
22:08
like a few 100,000 shares immediately and caused the stock
22:10
to like go up. And that warning, I believe, you
22:15
know, once the stock opened, that's when he, he, he went out
22:18
and bought like quite a few call options like longer dated stuff.
22:22
And so and you know, the rest is history.
22:25
But the reason why I bring that up is that back then I did not,
22:30
again, I, I did not think, I couldn't even imagine the
22:33
possibility of Verizon joining AT&T to work with ASD space
22:38
Mobile. Because then, you know, that's
22:41
from a competitive standpoint, it didn't, it didn't make sense.
22:44
And you know, but then ultimately what, how AT&T viewed
22:48
it was that in order for the service to be robust and to be
22:52
good and from a, a funding point of view, to get this thing off
22:55
the ground, like it made sense to bring Verizon in.
22:57
Because once you brought Verizon in, that validated what AST was
23:01
doing, right? And the cost of capital,
23:03
obviously, instead of raising money at 5 or 6, now they're
23:06
raising money in the 30s, which then now is in the 90s.
23:10
That would make sure that the service was going to get off the
23:12
ground and it was going to be robust in terms of the spectrum
23:16
that was being brought to bear. You know, you brought you bring
23:19
Verizon ATT and then that brings you scale because once you have
23:23
2/3 of the most profitable market in the world, you're
23:26
going to be able to deploy the consolation.
23:28
It's going to give you validation.
23:29
It's going to allow you if you're AT&T selfishly, you're
23:32
like, I need you to be successful in, in Asia and
23:35
Europe and South America and the Middle East and Africa and all
23:40
these markets in order for the financial stability and the
23:43
amortization of cost to support a robust service, which
23:46
ultimately will benefit me here in the US.
23:48
And by the way, like I'm on your board and I also own equity in
23:53
your company. And so our interests are aligned
23:55
right? And so Verizon similarly, and I
23:59
talked about this, you know, I guess it was like a month after
24:04
because obviously there was a lot of interest in from Wall
24:06
Street. It's like, how did, why did
24:07
Verizon choose these guys over Starlink?
24:09
And that was like another big point of, of validation.
24:14
It's like Verizon evaluated Starlink and they evaluate AAC
24:20
Space Mobile. And we learned about this
24:22
because Light Shed, which is a boutique investment bank, they
24:26
hosted a Verizon executive who was the decision maker in all
24:29
this. And he, he told the street this.
24:32
He's like, yeah, we, we evaluated both.
24:35
We looked at the road maps and we, we chose ASD Space Mobile
24:38
because it made way more sense, right?
24:40
And so, so that too. That was like a huge point of,
24:46
you know, all these bears who's like, oh, the tech doesn't work
24:49
and they're not going to get funding.
24:50
And and I'll talk a bit more about the shifting goal posts of
24:53
these clowns. But for AT&T to do it, you know,
24:59
it's like, OK, you know, you have Tim Fryer was like, oh,
25:01
AT&T like they're a bunch of idiots.
25:03
They their ventures in these areas haven't worked.
25:06
But then for Verizon to conduct due diligence and say, yeah,
25:09
we're we're backing this horse. That's a huge point of
25:12
validation. Like what you, you've got like
25:16
all these internal engineers who are RF experts, you know,
25:19
experts in in cellular data and, you know, all types of areas of
25:26
engineering who by the way, like eat, sleep and breathe this
25:29
stuff. They're not paid consultants who
25:32
are complete hacks, right? Like I talked about this idea of
25:35
those that can do and those that can't consult.
25:39
Yeah, that's, that's all these these like navel gazers out
25:42
there who talk shit about this company, but they've never done
25:45
anything in the lives versus like real world engineers at
25:49
Rakaton, Vodafone, ATT, Verizon, others who by the way of like
25:53
for, for Vodafone, Rakaton and ATT specifically, like they
25:58
helped develop this this service like their engineers were there.
26:01
You can't do something of this scale and integrate into an MNO
26:05
score network without engineers on the other side working with
26:08
you, which which, you know, for example, Vodafone had embedded
26:14
engineers at AST since I think was like the summer of 2018,
26:18
right? And so that's the big difference
26:20
versus like, oh, it's Starlink. We're going to like, we think
26:23
this is an interest idea. We're going to slap it together.
26:25
And by the way, like it's not going to integrate into the MN
26:28
OS network core. It's going to be a completely
26:30
separate roaming network because all that other stuff is too
26:33
hard, like, and we need to get this thing out the door.
26:35
And so that's, that's, that's one of the huge key differences,
26:38
right? Like this is a seamless
26:41
integrated extension of the OR not extension.
26:43
It's it's part of the threshold network.
26:46
And so, yeah, Verizon, going back to what I was saying
26:50
before, you know, they did due diligence on both and they
26:52
picked ASD space mobile. And so I'm going about this in a
26:56
very long winded way. But for T-Mobile, I think it's
27:01
important for them to really think about where this goes
27:04
strategically in the own term, right.
27:06
So the guy who made the decision to work with Starlink, he's no
27:09
longer at T-Mobile. This guy Mike Sievert, right?
27:12
He, he was the previous, I believe he's the previous COO
27:16
under Jean Legere, who is a marketing genius genius.
27:23
He's the one who pulled T-Mobile out of the shit can and really
27:27
transformed the company buying Gosh, I forget the small carrier
27:33
before, but then then he did the Sprint transaction.
27:36
And so then Mike Tieber came in. As you know, I don't you know,
27:40
this guy's an operational guy. He's not really strategic in
27:43
terms of long term thinking. He's like, Oh yeah, we're going
27:45
to do this Starlink deal and it's going to be a big splash.
27:49
We're going to get ahead of what AT and TS doing, but I don't
27:52
think he really understood the long term implications, which
27:55
is, you know, you're basically giving your customers away to
27:58
Starlink because not only is Starlink eventually wanting to
28:02
try to create their own, you know, mobile service, but they
28:05
also compete with you for 5G home and fiber, right, because
28:10
they're they're, they have the obviously they're fixed wireless
28:12
business. And so this guy for the short
28:15
term marketing pop and maybe he'll get some Subs short term.
28:18
He wasn't really thinking long term, which is why he's not at
28:21
T-Mobile anymore. And, and you, you know, it's not
28:27
a secret that people in the wireless industry don't trust
28:30
Starlink. There was an information article
28:33
recently that I, I had posted about how anybody, anybody who's
28:38
working in Starlink is very wary of it and don't really view it
28:41
as something long term beneficial, right.
28:45
And so that's why I think now we're at this point where
28:49
T-Mobile there, there's a, there's a decision point, right,
28:51
coming up in. So, so for Starlink and
28:56
T-Mobile, they have exclusivity where they have to work with
28:59
each other up through I think somewhere around July of this
29:03
summer. And then beyond that, T-Mobile
29:06
could, you know, and they have been trying to get AT&T and
29:10
Verizon to work with them. But then for T-Mobile, they can
29:13
also drop Starlink and they can go work with someone else,
29:16
right? And so all eyes will be on that.
29:20
I think that could be a potential catalyst come July.
29:23
And so people should watch out for that.
29:26
If July option volatility is cheap, it'd be a good idea to to
29:32
own some 'cause this is probably not being priced for the market
29:37
as as it as it probably shouldn't be, but it is
29:41
certainly a possibility, right? And so, but as I said before,
29:46
you know, it's highly unlikely 'cause I think for this to
29:49
happen, it's dependent upon AT&T and Verizon saying, OK, and if
29:55
you're AT&T and Verizon, like why would you let T-Mobile in?
29:57
You would use this service to go take as many T-Mobile Subs as
30:02
you can, right? And so why would you agree allow
30:07
AST to bring T-Mobile into the fold?
30:10
The other thing is like, you know, for T-Mobile, you know,
30:13
what do they bring? Are they going to dedicate some
30:15
low band spectrum to the service?
30:17
It's possible, obviously they could they could dedicate the
30:21
1.9 G block in the PCs band, which they're currently using
30:26
with Starlink and you know, AST could use that for mid band
30:29
Bluebirds. But you know what, what could
30:33
they bring, right, Which I think ultimately, you know, for
30:36
T-Mobile, if they wanted to use the service and if they don't
30:39
bring spectrum, then maybe they just give up some of the
30:41
economics to the other two carriers.
30:42
But but it's complex. It's not it's not, you know,
30:45
straightforward like how they would they would come into fold.
30:48
But let's talk about like, why, why it would change?
30:52
Like what, why would they work? Why, how could T-Mobile join and
30:58
why, why would it make sense? And so first, I think it's
31:00
important to understand some of the competitive dynamics here.
31:04
So Deutsche Telekom in the information article when the CEO
31:07
was was interviewed and why Deutsche Telekom, well that they
31:11
own T-Mobile, they effectively control it, right?
31:15
It's a subsidiary, which is kind of funny because like when
31:18
Starlink goes the FCC and complaints about foreign
31:21
investors somehow having influence over AST space mobile,
31:26
their biggest customer is owned by Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche
31:29
Telekom, by owning T-Mobile, they, they control a ton of
31:34
spectrum in the US. And so if you want to talk about
31:37
sovereignty and security issues, that's probably the wrong tree
31:41
to bark up. And so this guy David Goldman,
31:44
by the way, who's the the regulatory council over at
31:47
Starlink, he just looks like a complete ass, right?
31:51
Like he's he's complaining that Vodafone and and Orange and all
31:55
these foreign M and OS are working with Starlink.
31:57
Your biggest customer, T-Mobile is Deutsche Telekom.
32:00
Like what the fuck are you talking about?
32:02
Part of my French. But anyway, yeah, so we're at
32:08
this point now where deutsche.com has publicly said
32:13
we're not we're working with Starlink, but we're also weary
32:17
like we know that it's dancing with the tiger and they
32:20
specifically said this. We are open to working with
32:23
other satellite providers. And so if you're the parent
32:26
company is saying that, then obviously the subsidiary or the,
32:30
the you know, T-Mobile is thinking that as well because
32:33
they are one in the same. And so they're already Deutsche
32:38
have come and said we're open to working with others because we
32:41
don't trust Starlink. So so that there's like your
32:44
opening gap in terms of, you know, can they work together?
32:47
Yes, yes, it's certainly possible.
32:49
It's a non zero chance. The other thing that's
32:52
interesting is that Starlink they've, as Elon Musk has said,
32:56
you know, we're we're creating this Starlink mobile brand and
33:01
one day we might replace the carriers.
33:03
And of course, you know, he said this publicly in a very candid,
33:07
you know, interview kind of setting, But then when asked
33:11
formally on the record, he's like, well, no, no, we're not
33:13
going to compete with M and OS. Of course he's going to say
33:15
that, right? Because like, they're trying to
33:18
get M and OS as customers and they, they want to get
33:20
subscribers and they want to get the thing about T-Mobile is
33:22
like, they are a direct consumer brand.
33:26
And so they need to build their brand and awareness.
33:29
And one of the easiest ways to do that is to, it's like the,
33:32
the scorpion that rides on the, I forget the, the, the tail,
33:36
right? It's a scorpion riding on the
33:39
alligators back or something. I, I forget which is what the
33:42
animals are. But, but, but Starlink is happy
33:46
to ride the coattails of T-Mobile.
33:47
You know, they, they call it T satellite service powered by
33:50
Starlink. That's like great baby.
33:52
That's free advertising for Starlink.
33:55
And so for all these MN OS who don't have any strategic long
34:00
term sense, they're like, Oh yeah, we'll use Starlink.
34:02
You're basically pumping the Starlink brand in, you know, by
34:05
accident and and that's no mistake because Starlink, you
34:08
know, they bought Echostar spectrum and obviously like
34:11
they, they can't roll out a full mobile service without low band
34:15
spectrum, but but they're going to stack up as much spectrum as
34:18
they can because they ultimately do want to compete with the M
34:20
and OS right. And so for in this situation
34:25
where, you know, Starlink is made, it's, it's already known
34:31
that they ultimately want to compete with M and OS like you,
34:34
you can also see, don't follow what they say, but follow what
34:37
they do, right? Like the US in the US there
34:39
there's an upcoming AWS 3 mid band spectrum auction and
34:44
Starlink is one of the bidders they joined.
34:46
And who else is there? Obviously there's AT&T, Verizon,
34:49
T-Mobile and then, you know, T-mobile's application when they
34:54
show up to the spectrum, not that it's a physical room where
34:56
you go that the bidding is actually closed, close envelopes
34:59
and use or you know, it's, it's confidential bidding.
35:02
You send in what you want to pay for a spectrum, then you see if
35:04
it, if it cleared. That's pretty awkward, right?
35:08
Like you're, you go to this. If you imagine like a pretend
35:10
auction, you go in there and the strategic partner that you're
35:13
you're, you know, cozied up with, they show up to the
35:16
auction too. And it's like, hey, it's funny,
35:19
what are you doing here? And it's like, oh, we're going
35:20
to buy, we're going to buy spectrum too.
35:21
We're going to buy a spectrum that you're bidding on.
35:22
It's like why? I thought we're working
35:24
together. It's like, well, ultimately we
35:26
want to compete with you. So we're going to get the
35:28
spectrum and we're going to use it against you.
35:31
And so for T-Mobile, you're sitting there like, OK, maybe I
35:34
didn't make a good decision here.
35:36
Like these guys are stacking spectrum, our customers are
35:40
roaming on their network and you're getting all this like
35:42
customer data. And ultimately we let the Trojan
35:47
horse like the fox in the hen house.
35:48
So they're they're going to they're going to be with us.
35:50
So what are we going to do, right?
35:52
And so, so from a strategic perspective, T-Mobile is in a
35:57
really tough spot, right? Because they've, they've wed
35:59
themselves to the service. They basically opened up the hen
36:03
house and you let the fox in and they're, you know, the fox is
36:06
running riot on your customers. And ultimately they're going to
36:10
take your customers, right? Because for, for Starlink, it
36:13
makes kind of sense. Like they ultimately, once they
36:16
get a lot of customer data and they know where the customers
36:18
live and they, they obviously like, oh, for these rural
36:22
customers, I'm going to go push, Not only do I know where they
36:26
live, but I'm going to go push Starlink, you know, fix wireless
36:32
service to these guys. And so it just makes a ton of
36:35
sense, right, for for Starlink. So going back to what I was
36:40
saying before, you know, what could strategically change that
36:44
to allow this happen? Obviously Deutsche Starlingham,
36:47
they'd be part of that. If they decide they want
36:49
T-Mobile to work with other providers, then it's going to
36:51
happen. It's not really up to T-Mobile.
36:54
The other thing is that from AT&T and Verizon's perspective,
36:57
there might be a a scenario where it makes sense to bring
37:02
T-Mobile into the fold. And so why would that be?
37:05
Well, if you think that Starlink could eventually get to a mobile
37:10
service, right? And so let's say like at some
37:15
point in the future and just make up a scenario, T-Mobile
37:18
goes to AT&T and Verizon and says, Hey, can I have in on this
37:23
ASD, you know, service and then Verizon, AT&T tell them to go #
37:28
sand. Then T MO can say, OK, well, if
37:30
you don't let me, you know, then I will not only you know, I, I
37:36
obviously will, will stick with Starlink, but then I'm going to
37:39
allow Starlink to become a mobile virtual network operator,
37:44
right? Like I'm actually going to
37:45
entertain that and, and help them launch their own cellular
37:49
service, right. And so N MB NO Starlink mobile.
37:53
That could be, Oh, by the way, there's a headline here.
37:57
Israel agrees to direct talks with Lebanon.
37:59
OK, that's good markets like up on that.
38:02
But anyway, for, for T-Mobile, they could say, well, you know,
38:07
none of us has none of us will allow Starlink to become an
38:10
MBNO. But if you don't let me join, I
38:12
will enable them and I'll I'll make it bad for everybody.
38:15
And so in that type of situation, that's where AT&T and
38:18
Verizon could say, well, OK, maybe it makes sense to allow
38:22
T-Mobile to join versus, you know, the the alternative, which
38:28
is Starlink becoming a real MVNO competitor, right?
38:32
And so for those that don't know, and MVNO is like MIT
38:36
Mobile or some of these other businesses where, you know, you
38:41
have a marketing brand that will leverage an existing, you know,
38:46
carriers network. And, and so for in Starlink's
38:49
instance, they, they have the satellite based connectivity,
38:53
which is, which will be pretty good, although it won't be able
38:56
to penetrate buildings or, you know, and it can't work in dense
38:59
areas because there's going to be too many users.
39:01
But then by leveraging a T-Mobile network and could then
39:06
calling it Star mobile network or whatever it is * yeah.
39:09
Star Mobile, Starlink Mobile, then you become a, become an
39:13
MPNO, right? And so then you can compete more
39:16
effectively. You can actually get customers
39:18
not only from AT&T, Verizon, but from T-Mobile.
39:21
But then T-Mobile from their perspective is like, OK, well,
39:23
net, net, hopefully if I've done all the calculations right
39:26
economically, because they're paying me rents on my cellular
39:29
network, it'll be worth, you know, some of the, the Subs that
39:33
I lose cause overall net gain, net gains from 18 to price,
39:36
it'll help. And so from that perspective, by
39:41
using that card, maybe AT&T and Verizon like, OK, you know what,
39:45
we'll let you in on AST Space mobile because obviously you
39:49
know, the threat of Starlink mobile via becoming an MVNO and
39:53
using it satellite network as well.
39:55
That's too that's too much, right.
39:57
And so that that could be a situation where AT&T and Verizon
40:01
do accommodate T-Mobile, where they look at this long term
40:04
because these two companies actually think long term, unlike
40:07
T-Mobile. And they are like, OK, this is
40:10
worth it. We'll just, you know, we want to
40:14
keep the, the risk of Starlink becoming a credible, you know,
40:18
fourth player off the table, right?
40:21
So that that's like one way where you could see this
40:24
happening. Another scenario where it might
40:27
happen as well is, is where the FCC says, hey, you know what,
40:32
the service is too important. And as a result, like you ASC
40:38
Space Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, you have to open it up T-Mobile.
40:41
And so why would that be you? Well, if if you're in a
40:46
situation with the FCC says, hey, T-Mobile, Starlink, when
40:51
you dial 911 and you're out of, you know, terrestrial coverage,
40:54
Starlink can't do native voice. This is unacceptable.
40:57
Like T-Mobile needs to have the ability to access that service,
41:03
those users, because 911 is, you know, E91-O is more central than
41:06
anything. Then then you might get forced
41:09
by the regulators to open it up, right?
41:10
And so then that situation might also be something where T-Mobile
41:14
becomes a customer of AST Space Mobile because Starlink's
41:18
service is not good enough. And so that, that could be
41:21
another situation, which I don't think is likely under Brendan
41:25
Carr, but who knows, right? Like it could happen under
41:28
another administration, because I think Brendan Carr, as we all
41:31
know, is, is a big supporter of, of SpaceX.
41:35
Of course, he's a big supporter of all American companies, but
41:38
you know, he's a special place in his heart for them.
41:40
So I, I don't know if he would do that, but but who knows?
41:44
So if so, going back to, you know, if T-Mobile did join AT&T
41:49
and Verizon for AC Space Mobile, then in that scenario, we're
41:54
talking like winner takes all type of situation because
41:57
obviously owning 100% of the US market, the most profitable
42:02
wireless market in the world, that would be game over, right?
42:05
And so now you would be shifting from a duopoly where Starlink is
42:11
kind of the the weaker second party and, and obviously AST is
42:17
the stronger party to shifting from a duopoly to now what is
42:21
essentially the fact of monopoly.
42:24
And so that would be, you know, as I mentioned before, like what
42:28
would the stock price do in that scenario?
42:29
Like, you know, previously when Verizon joined AST, the stock
42:36
went up 69% to like $9 and change and then ultimately
42:39
rallied over 600% to like 39 over that, the course of I guess
42:45
it was like 3 months. But if T-Mobile joined AST Space
42:49
Mobile, I don't know with the stock like double with a triple,
42:55
you know, that's something that I can't say with any level of
42:58
certainty, but that would be a game over center.
43:00
And that in terms of timing, like the potential for that to
43:04
happen could be anytime starting on June, July of this year and,
43:10
and not and beyond, right? And so I think it's important to
43:13
continue to watch and see what Deutsche Telekom says about the
43:16
Starling partnership and evaluating other satellite
43:20
offerings, which, you know, it's no, no surprise that Elon Musk
43:24
is not very popular in Europe. And so not only from a
43:28
technological standpoint does it, you know, Starlink's product
43:32
is inferior on direct to sell, but there's also political
43:35
reasons to potentially shift, shift away from that.
43:39
And so, yeah, it's something to keep an eye on and never say
43:44
never. Like I, as I said before,
43:47
previously, I never would have thought Verizon would work with
43:51
AT&T with AST and, and so the idea that with a superior
43:55
technology and business model, T-Mobile could certainly join.
44:00
So I'll, I'll leave it at that. But anyway, I wanted to shift to
44:05
some bear stuff, bear case. I know Cooke had covered this in
44:11
a recent space, but it is pretty funny like to see how the goal
44:17
posts continue to shift for these guys.
44:19
So initially it was like Tecnas, it will never work it, you know,
44:23
it doesn't make sense. And of course that got, you
44:26
know, eviscerated and then company won't get financed.
44:29
And by the way, like, you know, recently the company has been
44:32
able to raise billion dollars at a clip, you know, for 2%
44:35
dilution. So financing is not an issue.
44:38
And then, of course, you know, there's the arguments that the
44:40
market's not big enough. It's it's like so small that you
44:44
know, Starlink, SpaceX is spending twenty billion, $23
44:47
billion in spectrum and every legacy satellite player is and
44:53
their mom is like trying to enter into this market and
44:56
they're trying to like grab grope for some relevancy, even
45:01
changing their their names. Yasat, which is like this dead
45:04
company became Equitus, which is all all, all sound like this hot
45:10
European directed device player, but it's just basically the same
45:14
piece of shit company before. And then then now the bears are
45:18
saying stacking doesn't work and and somehow these satellites
45:22
won't fit into a Falcon 9 fairing, which it's kind of
45:27
funny, right? Like I remember the early bears,
45:30
the technical bears that would say that the satellites the
45:35
company didn't build in proper satellite heat dissipation
45:39
technology. And so the satellites would melt
45:40
in orbit. And it's kind of funny like
45:42
these, these arguments are for the uneducated where it's like,
45:47
holy shit, the company didn't think about these like 5
45:50
different things And they're going to go launch this
45:53
satellite in space and it's not going to work.
45:54
It's going to melt. And if you look at, you know, if
45:58
you look at like all the engineers that that the company
46:01
has amassed over the years. And by the way, like I did speak
46:03
to a headhunter, I guess it was like a few months ago.
46:06
And, you know, the company has poached a ton of people from
46:08
SpaceX, you know, any Boeing, a number of different primes,
46:13
Lockheed Martin, people with real like long historic space,
46:18
space light heritage. It's just funny that these
46:22
people, these consultants push these narratives, which, you
46:26
know, for a, a layperson who hasn't been following the
46:28
company for a long time, it it's almost like a gotcha where it's
46:32
like, Oh yeah, I guess this stuff is hard.
46:34
And maybe they didn't think about like heat dissipation
46:37
issues. And it's like, no, you idiots,
46:40
like they're the company, if, if you look at all the experiences
46:45
they've amassed, like these people have done this over and
46:47
over again. And, and by the way, like the
46:48
company with its current group of engineers, you know, we've
46:54
put up successfully, we've built, tested, deployed,
46:59
unfolded and operated now 7 satellites successfully.
47:03
And when people talk about like, Oh my God, there's a risk of
47:06
this batch, it's like, guys, the Block 1 was a batch of five
47:10
satellites. I mean, not only were they built
47:12
tested, they were put onto a truck, they were shipped down to
47:15
Cape Canaveral, They were all put into a single Falcon 9
47:18
bearing. They were launched, they were
47:20
spaced out and they were unfolded, all of them
47:23
successfully, 100% success rate, right?
47:25
And so like the, the fact that you've got these consultants who
47:30
by the way, they like never done anything in their job.
47:32
This latest guy, Stewart Taylor, I think his last name, like he,
47:38
I guess he prides himself on being a good poker player, which
47:42
I, I think is good 'cause he, he's really good at
47:44
bullshitting. I mean, this guy's not playing
47:46
with a full deck of cards, but. But yeah, it's, it's pretty
47:50
funny where the goal posts continue to move like the the
47:54
latest one where 3 satellites aren't going to fit into a
47:57
Falcon 9 fairing dude, everybody has tape measures like they're
48:01
no one's dumb. Like when you build a satellite
48:04
and you design them, you design them to fit in standard
48:09
fairings. And so the fact, you know,
48:12
someone trying to push the narrative that they don't fit
48:14
into a fairing or by the way, this guy Stewart also was saying
48:17
like, oh, I don't know how I can ship.
48:21
I don't know how they're going to be able to ship these
48:23
satellites stacked on a on a flatbed truck.
48:25
It's like, are you out of your mind?
48:27
There's under no circumstance is a company stacking satellites
48:31
and putting them on a flatbed truck and and driving them down
48:34
to the Cape Canaveral. On the contrary, like they are
48:38
in containers and you know, depending on the configuration,
48:42
it's probably going to be 1 satellite on one flatbed truck
48:46
or maybe at some point in the future it could be two
48:48
satellites, but that's not an issue.
48:50
And so it's just kind of funny where these guys are grappling
48:55
and, you know, groping for some type of issues to and I'm not
49:02
really sure what to what end. Right.
49:03
Like, yeah, you know, with institutional investors, by the
49:07
way, like I think Tim Ferrar is doing some type of call with
49:10
Deutsche Bank where he's going to talk about the Game of
49:12
Thrones, like the all the different satellite players and
49:15
his perspective, Well, guess what institutions like Tim
49:18
Ferrar's perspective on the entry is hasn't it's not just 0
49:23
value, it's actually negative value.
49:24
Like it's anyone who followed him over the last five years has
49:30
suffered negative alpha, like have lost a shit ton of money.
49:34
And I know there's several funds out there.
49:36
I won't name them, but they've lost a ton of money.
49:38
And, and when you go to LP's and you're like, Oh yeah, I lost
49:41
money on this short. It's like, why?
49:43
What gave you conviction? Why follow this guy?
49:44
Tim Farrar? He told me it wasn't going to
49:46
work right. It's like, guys, did you know
49:49
that Tim Farrar is paid by Global Star?
49:51
Like you have to do more diligence about the advice that
49:56
you're listening to. And and if you want to leverage
50:00
this guy, just look at his post. I mean, it's been 100% negative
50:04
on HD space mobile, 100% negative on Starlink, 100%
50:07
negative on SpaceX. He's been wrong the entire way.
50:09
So why would you ever put any value on his advice?
50:13
But I guess there you know, there's there's like a sucker
50:15
board, right? Like no one, especially for
50:17
generalists who haven't followed the sector and they're like, oh,
50:20
this time for our guy, like, and by the way, like his, his MO is
50:22
like he gets quoted in articles and then people are like, oh,
50:24
this guy must be the expert for space.
50:27
And so they call him and then, you know, he, he, he talks, he
50:30
writes in his blog and he writes, he talks FUD.
50:33
And part of his mistake is like, he'll talk to negatively about
50:37
something and then it's like, well, I better go pay this guy a
50:39
few 100 bucks an hour to go learn what, what it's, you know,
50:44
why he's negative. And that's, and that's part of
50:47
the paranoia of being running institutional money is like,
50:50
there can never be enough information.
50:51
And when you have someone like Tim Farrar out there spewing
50:54
negative stuff, then you're going to go seek him out and be
50:56
like, OK, is this real? I'll pay him and, you know, I'd
50:59
say like a vast majority of people find out that his advice
51:02
is worth, you know, toilet paper and then they don't engage with
51:05
him anymore. But there's always more, more
51:07
suckers, right, to go engage. So but anyway, you know, these
51:14
guys are. Yeah.
51:17
I mean, I, I did want to talk about this Stewart Taylor guy
51:21
'cause he's been very vocal recently and it's important to
51:23
kind of look at. And he, I didn't realize like he
51:27
is a satellite consultant and he's been around the industry.
51:30
But, and the reason why that is, is that for the last, what, five
51:34
years, he's never talked about ASC Spaceball, not even once,
51:37
right? And I went back and looked at
51:39
his timeline on his Twitter and there's not one mention of AST
51:43
Space Mobile until November of 2025.
51:47
And then from that point on, all of a sudden this guy is an
51:49
expert on the company and he's like talking negatively about
51:52
the company. And his first post very
51:55
specifically is in support of ViaSat.
51:57
He talks about like how the the Legato deal is, is ViaSat.
52:02
Like somehow, what was it? Somehow they're they're rinsing
52:06
AST, like they got AST to pay them $420 million and then
52:10
they're going to use their legal rights to block them globally
52:14
and they're going to do all this stuff.
52:17
And and so right then and there, you can already see this guy's
52:20
angle like he's clearly paid by ViaSat.
52:24
And I think based off of some other people's work, I think
52:26
he's also a paid consultant for Iridium, who both by the way,
52:31
like are the most run by ASD, right?
52:33
And so this guy, the CEO of ViaSat, who I call ViaSat now,
52:38
Mark Dingberg, I think is his name.
52:41
He, you know, they were very skeptical of what ASD is doing,
52:44
but now, you know, lock, stock and barrel, they've completely
52:48
shifted their business model to become AD to D provider, right?
52:51
And so they're using any means possible.
52:54
So after the Legato deal happens, ViaSat breached its,
52:59
its cooperation agreement out of the bankruptcy court and they
53:03
tried to like frustrate regulatory approval.
53:06
And then the judge slapped them down.
53:08
And then they, they tried to appeal that.
53:10
And the judge got even more pisses and slapped it down.
53:12
And I think they're trying to appeal it again because this, by
53:16
the way, Tanner has been doing a great job.
53:18
This is actually extinction level type of, you know,
53:22
strategic player for Biasat because if they can't slow ASD
53:25
space mobile down and they can't beat them via law.
53:28
Fair. I think the company's cooked
53:30
right. And so, you know, they don't
53:33
have the cash flow to support their tremendous amount of debt.
53:34
I think they've got like 6 billion or so of debt and
53:37
they're losing the in the core business, which is providing
53:41
broadband connectivity over airplanes and broadband.
53:44
I, I guess I would use that generously.
53:46
Biasat is not broadband, but they're losing, you know, market
53:49
share to Starlink. This is a melting ice cube of a
53:52
company, right? And so the AST space mobile
53:56
payment to Legato, which then had to go to ViaSat of $420
54:00
million. That was a huge lifeline for
54:02
them, right? Like, so they're trying to bite
54:05
the hand that feeds them and ultimately for ViaSat.
54:09
So you might ask, like some people might ask, well, why is
54:11
ViaSat trading so well? Why is it at 56 bucks?
54:13
Well, you're, you kind of have like this Echostar type of
54:17
situation where the company operationally is up shit Creek
54:21
and that's good. That's good.
54:23
Why is that good? Well, because they, they're
54:25
sitting on a pretty decent amount of spectrum assets,
54:27
right? And so if the company is forced
54:30
into financial distress, which is what they're currently in,
54:33
will they ultimately have to sell or lease out that spectrum?
54:37
And is it basically worth more dead than alive?
54:39
And in Biasat's case and Echostar's case, the answer to
54:43
both is unequivocally yes. And so for Biasat people are
54:48
playing, you know from the institutional side, people are
54:50
playing for the company to die and then the the value of the
54:54
spectrum assets get realized through some monetization of
54:57
that. They're not betting on the
54:59
company being a a long term player in broadband airline
55:05
connectivity or some harebrained directed device strategy.
55:09
They're hoping that the company dies and monetizes the spectrum
55:12
and then which pay off the debt equity holders will get a decent
55:16
amount of value back. So that's a play there.
55:18
But and that's why guys like Stewart who are working for
55:22
Vyasat, they're they're coming up with any host of reasons
55:27
somehow to put sway public opinion, which at the end of the
55:30
day, like for this guy to show up in November of 2025 and
55:36
starts spewing negative stuff about the company, It's quite
55:40
laughable, right? It's like, guys, yeah, we can,
55:42
we can see through what you're trying to accomplish.
55:45
And by the way, like AST space mobile shareholders, we're not
55:49
idiots like we've been around. We've seen any and everything
55:52
over the last five years. You're you're you think you're
55:56
dealing with unsophisticated investors.
55:59
On the contrary, I think, you know, space mob in terms of due
56:03
diligence as higher level understanding, technical and
56:07
financial than any hedge fund or institutional investor out
56:10
there. So yeah, you're you're you're
56:12
playing a losing game. But anyway, wow, this space is
56:16
going quite long. I'm going to finish that.
56:18
That's my whole AST Spreel. I guess in summary, I think
56:23
yeah, we've got launch and launch ABB 7 next week.
56:27
We've got a batch update, which, you know, we'll probably have
56:29
our first batch delivered in April.
56:33
And the container shipment, the containers showing up at Midland
56:38
are, you know, if you look at previous precedent when the
56:42
container show up, that means like we're pretty damn close to
56:45
putting the satellites in those containers and shipping them
56:48
out. You know, once they've gone
56:49
through testing. T-Mobile, I think it's not a
56:52
high probability, but it is a 30% probability, 20 percent, 40%
56:58
depends on how you handicap it. But if that happens and you're
57:03
short this stock, that's going to be an extinction level event
57:06
for you. So be careful.
57:09
If you want to stay short, that's fine.
57:11
By the way, like people who shorted the stock, they've been,
57:15
they've paid for all of our financings and are upside in the
57:18
stock and and they make things interesting.
57:21
So I don't hate the shorts. I just think, you know, when
57:24
someone, if someone were to come to your house and say, hey,
57:27
here's like 20,000 dollars, $40,000 and there's multiple of
57:32
them. And so you end up making like
57:33
millions of dollars off these people are willing to willing to
57:36
give you their money. You should be quite happy about
57:39
that, right? You should support them in
57:41
their, in their continued efforts to give you money as the
57:44
as the dumb person at the the poker table, I guess, as maybe
57:47
Stewart would say. But yeah, so, so that's, so I
57:52
think, you know, T-Mobile, obviously, I think that's a
57:56
possibility. And it's, you know, the market.
58:01
I don't think it's pricing that, but perhaps it should.
58:03
And then finally the bear case. Yeah, it's entertaining at this
58:06
point, like the movie goal posts coming up with hair brain ideas
58:09
as to maybe why the the satellites can't be stacked
58:15
interfering or I don't know what you you pick like some
58:18
harebrained negative angle and these guys have tried and
58:24
failed. So so yeah, that's that's that.
58:27
And then finally, I'm going to close this with just a few
58:30
comments on Earth observation in black sky.
58:34
I have a small position in black sky.
58:36
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
58:40
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
58:42
podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
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media, or leave a rating and review.
58:48
To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
58:52
sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
58:55
next time. We're doing something very, very
59:01
big and acting with this technology we can really affect
59:03
billion lives. AST Space Mobility is the only
59:06
company that has good technology to deliver cellular broadband
59:11
connectivity directly from space to do everyday smartphone.
59:15
People will just basically turn their phone and be syndrome
59:19
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
59:22
know that it's connected by satellite.
59:24
Our role is to. Bring this into.
59:27
Reality, always in partnership with the MMO.
59:36
Listen, Waffles.