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Anpanman - AST SpaceMobile Adds T-Mobile - THE END GAME · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:07
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 0:11
  Just basically from the phone, be seamless regardless of where
• 0:15
  you are. We don't want the user even to
• 0:17
  know that it's connected by satellite, Satellite.
• 0:22
  Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
• 0:27
  Good morning everybody. What an unbelievable fucking
• 0:33
  day, man. Unbelievable.
• 0:37
  I'm literally beside myself. The last time I felt this way
• 0:41
  was when AST Space Mobile added Verizon as a carrier to AT&T.
• 0:49
  And now what we what Space Mob had been predicting for the last
• 0:56
  three years has come to fruition.
• 0:58
  AST Space Mobile has added T-Mobile as a carrier.
• 1:03
  And so we have effectively 100% of the US market locked up now.
• 1:09
  It's not definitive and it's going to take some time.
• 1:13
  And there's also some regulatory things that need to get worked
• 1:17
  through. And there's things that can be
• 1:19
  done that can be said explicitly, but there's a lot of
• 1:22
  stuff that cannot be said explicitly but are implied.
• 1:26
  And I'll explain about that. But I think it's really
• 1:30
  important and this is where the space mob due diligence and I
• 1:36
  guess, you know, having been a former hedge fund guy, like you
• 1:39
  got to read all the stuff between the tea leaves and then
• 1:43
  couple that together with, you know, I had a conversation with
• 1:47
  management this morning. And I won't go into what
• 1:52
  exactly, you know, discerning between what they said or
• 1:56
  whatever, what I'm about to talk about because obviously there's
• 1:58
  like some sensitive stuff which, which will be, I guess revealed
• 2:04
  over the next weeks, months. But but yeah, this is huge.
• 2:10
  This is absolutely huge. I think it's important.
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  Let's let's start off. So this morning when I woke up,
• 2:16
  I, I saw this press release from ASD and I was like, holy shit.
• 2:21
  And, and of course, initially I was a little worried because I
• 2:24
  was like, is this something that was done on its own and AST is
• 2:28
  responding to it. Then I looked at the press
• 2:30
  release and I read it closely and, and it became crystal clear
• 2:34
  that this is a joint venture that's being put together and
• 2:39
  it's going to enable AST to bring T-Mobile into the fold.
• 2:43
  Now, they can't explicitly say that.
• 2:45
  And for, you know, from a regulatory and antitrust point
• 2:48
  of view, but that's what it is. I think it's important to
• 2:51
  highlight, you know, a few things to, you know, conclusion
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  to draw. 1st, AT&T is the quarterback of this whole joint
• 3:03
  venture as many roll call. AT&T was a quarterback of the
• 3:08
  AT&T and Verizon partnership to work with AST and now we have
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  AT&T quarterbacking the partnership between Verizon and
• 3:17
  T-Mobile. And the reason why that is, is
• 3:18
  that AST, AT&T was a leading edge partner with AST in
• 3:24
  developing this solution, which uses threshold spectrum and
• 3:29
  integrates the satellite service into the network core.
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  So it's seamless in hand off and delivery of service.
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  And so it's very important to understand that AT&T was the one
• 3:40
  who issued this press release, right?
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  So, so they are, they are the quarterback of this whole thing
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  and they are working obviously very closely with ASD.
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  So that's point number one point #2 when this press release went
• 3:53
  out, there was only one provider that immediately pressed the
• 3:57
  button and had coordinated the PR at the same time, was in on
• 4:01
  it, all that stuff. And that was HD Space Mobile.
• 4:06
  And that was one of the first things when I woke up, I, I
• 4:09
  looked and saw if like Starlink had released anything, Global
• 4:12
  Star released anything. They haven't released anything
• 4:15
  because they're not they just learned about it today because
• 4:20
  they're from they're on the outside looking it.
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  And so so that's really important.
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  You had AST space mobile press the button same time as these
• 4:31
  carriers. You had a bell retweeting and
• 4:35
  you had Scott retweeting it, right.
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  And I will, I think Will Townsend had mentioned it
• 4:41
  earlier. He got briefed ahead of time.
• 4:44
  You know, AST was in the middle of all this, right?
• 4:47
  But it's important to note that they're not going to explicitly
• 4:51
  say or they can't explicitly say certain things for regulatory
• 4:55
  reasons. And, and I'll talk about that in
• 4:57
  a little bit, but it's, it's also important to note that this
• 5:01
  is a, this is not a definitive agreement yet between the
• 5:04
  carriers. However, they're working towards
• 5:06
  that. And the timing is very
• 5:08
  interesting because as we all know, T-mobile's exclusivity
• 5:11
  with team with Starlink ends next month to potentially July.
• 5:18
  And so that timing, the ending of the exclusivity that it's not
• 5:24
  as if that happens that, that that's by chance, it's this,
• 5:28
  this JV came out because of that exclusivity ending.
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  And you saw over the last few earnings calls and, and, and,
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  you know, discussions from the various CEOs talking about how
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  they, they started to become more to speak more openly about
• 5:47
  working with other satellite providers.
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  I mean, AT&T to this and and of course T-Mobile recently just
• 5:52
  said, hey, you know, we're interested in ASD space mobile
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  and Global star. This is for part of the
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  regulatory record where they're going to talk about like we want
• 6:00
  more competition with satellite, right.
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  And, and so that's kind of the the balance to all this in terms
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  of trying to get this through the regulatory view.
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  But it's important to note that AT&T and Verizon both have
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  exclusivity with AST for the next once commercial service
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  launches, they have exclusivity for multiple years, which I
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  believe is at a minimum around 3 years, right?
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  So, so they're locked in with AAST space mobile.
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  T-Mobile, on the other hand, exclusivity ends in the next
• 6:30
  month or two. So again, like this is part of
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  the Mosaic that you have to kind of piece together.
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  It's like from a competitive standpoint, what does this joint
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  venture mean? This is, this is not good for
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  Starlink, right? Starlink didn't put out PR Like
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  that's very telling. Like they're not, they're
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  learning about this today. So I think that's really
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  important for people to understand.
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  And, and I think, you know, the market, it might take a little
• 6:54
  bit of time to digest this news, but once they start talking to
• 6:58
  carriers, they start talking to AST, it's going to become
• 7:01
  abundantly clear what this means.
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  But yeah, so 18 T and Verizon going back, you know, they, they
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  have exclusivity with AST for the next, call it three years.
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  They also contributed 850 megahertz spectrum which I find
• 7:15
  interesting because also is is some space mob have been doing
• 7:20
  due diligence. There is virgin unused 800
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  megahertz spectrum that is coming to market that grain
• 7:27
  management has that deals closing.
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  I think T-Mobile did did that transaction, but who's going to
• 7:35
  use that spectrum right? Is it going to get thrown into
• 7:39
  this JV right or is game you know so or is T-Mobile going to
• 7:43
  throw in other spectrum? For example, are they going to
• 7:46
  yank the 1.9 gigahertz spectrum that they're using with
• 7:50
  Starlink? Are they going to yank that from
• 7:51
  them eventually and then give that to AST to use for mid band?
• 7:56
  It's mid band constellation. But the key thing is that
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  T-Mobile is going to be a meaningful and important
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  contributor of spectrum and that will be used by ASD, whether
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  it's additional low band spectrum, which my guess is
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  absolutely there will be, but also mid band spectrum,
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  especially the the G block which is currently used by Starlink.
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  Because I think people have to remember like Starlink right now
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  they're amassing spectrum. They have AWS 3 which is in two
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  gigahertz range and they have they just bought the H block
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  which is 1.9 gigahertz. It's actually right next to
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  T-mobile's G block. And so, so they're going to in
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  the ultimately what we all know Elon Musk has talked about this
• 8:42
  publicly and, and that's his ambition.
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  You know, they just branded themselves Starlink mobile.
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  They're they're they're eventually going to go direct to
• 8:50
  consumer on this product, which is why T-Mobile and, and we
• 8:54
  talked about this, this scenario where, you know, hypothetically
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  will, will AT&T and Verizon allow T-Mobile?
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  In my view on that was no, unless T-Mobile went to both of
• 9:06
  those guys and said, hey, look, if you don't let me in on this,
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  on this service and we create this joint venture, for example,
• 9:14
  I'll blow my brains out, meaning I'll enable Starling to become a
• 9:18
  mobile network operator or virtual mobile network operator.
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  And so maybe that's part of the discussion that happened here.
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  But 18 T and Verizon are like, hey, we're going to cut you in.
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  And that that's that's what happened today.
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  And so I think Will Townsend, who's a distinguished research
• 9:36
  analyst who covers the industry, he said it very succinctly,
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  succinctly. He was briefed before this this
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  PR went out. He said that he also viewed this
• 9:45
  alliance as a defensive move to mitigate the impact of any non
• 9:49
  terrestrial network service provider that might wish to more
• 9:53
  directly compete with mobile network operators.
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  There's only one player that's doing that.
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  It's not AST because AST as Kathy has said, they, they are a
• 10:02
  cooperative player that we sell our service directly through M
• 10:06
  and OS in partnership with them. But there's one carrier, there's
• 10:09
  sorry, there's one satellite provider that is planning to go
• 10:12
  direct and, and that already sells direct to consumers and
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  that's Starlink. And so specifically this, this
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  JV was formed as a competitive counterbalance to Starlink,
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  right. And I think ultimately the way
• 10:27
  that I see this playing out is that I think Starlink will get
• 10:31
  cut out from T-Mobile, right? And and some might say, well,
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  that's anti competitive. What if customers want to use
• 10:39
  their service, they absolutely will be able to use the service
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  because the way that Starlink is operated is architected today is
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  that it operates it as a completely separate roaming
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  network, right. And So what Starlink can do,
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  they can say, OK, well, we don't need T-Mobile.
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  We're going to go directly consumers and sell them in E SIM
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  with our service. And and that service is either
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  going to be, you know that that it could be just for roaming
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  when you're out of terrestrial coverage or they, they could try
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  to develop something that is directly competitive with the
• 11:10
  MNO's. Now it's not going to be as good
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  because it doesn't have low band cellular spectrum, but it's
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  going to be it's going to be a service, right.
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  And so from a competitive standpoint, these guys can go to
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  regulators and say, well, it is going to be a competitive market
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  because obviously Starlink is creating what is now looking to
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  be like a fourth wireless carrier, their facilities based
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  because they own satellites. They also got a piece of Boost
• 11:33
  Mobile's network that was built out.
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  And so there you have a, you have now four players
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  competition like and, and the three of us, we just happen to
• 11:41
  be working with AC space mobile. So that's not anti competitive.
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  People have more choice. And the reason why, and, and
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  this is how they can get through regulators, the reason why the
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  three carriers are working together is that they're going
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  to contribute spectrum. And, and if the objective aim is
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  to provide better service to consumers and for, you know,
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  avoiding dead spots and, and providing broadband, then the
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  FCC should be very supportive of this transaction, right?
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  This joint venture, because then Starlink has its own ability to
• 12:13
  go directly to consumer again. They can sell you an esim.
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  They redo that today. I mean, for those that don't
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  know, you can as a Verizon or AT&T customer, you can go to
• 12:24
  Starlink and get an E SIM and you can roam on their network
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  when you have dead spots. So there's no competitive, there
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  won't be a competitive issue from an antitrust point of view.
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  And if anything, this, this, this gives the consumer like a
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  much better broadband experience.
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  And then and then as Starlink develops, I start, you know, the
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  FCC just gave approval of the Starlink echo star transaction
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  where they got all the spectrum. It's going to be hard for the
• 12:50
  FCC to argue that this is a anti competitive because Starlink has
• 12:54
  a shit load of a spectrum. I mean, granted it's mid band,
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  but they're going to be able to develop a competitive service.
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  And so, so yeah, like it from a regulatory point of view like
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  this shouldn't have any issues getting through.
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  That said, the AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile the way they have to be
• 13:12
  very careful in how they they frame this JV because the JV is
• 13:17
  going to buy and negotiate satellite services from, you
• 13:21
  know, various, various competitors.
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  And so that sounds good competitively, but at the end of
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  the day, there's only one satellite direct to sell
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  broadband solution that is working in cooperation with M
• 13:36
  and OS, not against them and that's AST space mobile, right?
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  I mean, what other what are their solutions are there
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  There's sky low that does texting.
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  I guess maybe that's kind of interesting that that this JV
• 13:48
  could could utilize. But for, for Amazon Global Star,
• 13:55
  like maybe 5-6 years out from now when they develop their own
• 14:00
  satellite and they put those satellites up, it will be
• 14:03
  somewhat competitive. But maybe from a competitive
• 14:06
  standpoint, maybe they'll leverage that network to a
• 14:09
  degree. But it, but the carriers don't
• 14:11
  need to do that, right? They don't need to bring Amazon
• 14:13
  in because you already get that through your iPhone already.
• 14:18
  And, and we know that the carriers are very wary of Apple
• 14:26
  kind of encroaching on their territory as well as Amazon.
• 14:28
  Now yesterday T-Mobile said, hey, yeah, Amazon's coming.
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  We're interested in looking at that too for regulars.
• 14:35
  That's what you need to say. You have to be able to say,
• 14:38
  yeah, we're, we're, we're assessing all these options and
• 14:40
  we're going to keep it open. And and we want it to be
• 14:42
  competitive. But at the end of the day like
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  this, this move today in particular is to respond to the
• 14:51
  competitive threat of, of Starlink, right?
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  And, and there's one company that is the North Star that's
• 14:58
  going to help these M and OS compete against Starlink and
• 15:00
  that is AST Space Mobile. And so instead of having 2/3 of
• 15:04
  the market now we've added T-Mobile.
• 15:06
  Now again, obviously it's not done yet.
• 15:08
  They, they have to negotiate this thing.
• 15:10
  But it's clear who's in the driving seat.
• 15:13
  It's AT&T and AST Space Mobile. And then you've got Verizon and
• 15:17
  T-Mobile who who are along for the ride.
• 15:23
  Now, as I mentioned before, like this is going to take time for
• 15:27
  the market to realize. And last time when Verizon was
• 15:32
  announced, the market didn't care pre market.
• 15:34
  Like the stock was up basically the same amount it is now.
• 15:36
  And then it took time or no, it was it was up more, but it took
• 15:41
  time for people to digest what what this meant.
• 15:44
  And speaking to some of you this morning and I spoke to, you
• 15:47
  know, two hedge fund guys too, like there were a lot of
• 15:50
  questions and they didn't quite understand.
• 15:53
  And I tried and I explained it explicitly to them.
• 15:55
  They're like, oh, OK, yeah, I get it now and then.
• 15:57
  So I think that's going to happen over the next few days
• 16:01
  and weeks, but I, I fully expect AST to re rate way higher once
• 16:07
  people understand what this means.
• 16:09
  And I, I think it's also like these these, these bears and
• 16:15
  skeptics who say the direct to device market isn't real, it's
• 16:18
  niche. You just had the three carriers
• 16:23
  who own the US market come together and form a joint
• 16:25
  venture to, you know, and, and to utilize AC space mobile like
• 16:33
  they're doing this because it is a real market and it's and on
• 16:36
  the one hand it's a it's a massive opportunity.
• 16:39
  On the other hand, it's a huge threat to them.
• 16:41
  I mean, I think AST showing 100 megabits per second and
• 16:47
  eventually getting to for for the block one silence, but then
• 16:50
  getting to 200 megabits per second for block 2 satellites
• 16:52
  like this is a real competitive threat to them.
• 16:55
  But if structured the right way, which is this JV and working
• 17:00
  with ACC mobile, it's going to be a huge boon for consumers and
• 17:05
  it's going to be a great thing for the carriers.
• 17:07
  And then again, going back to the, the person that's missing
• 17:12
  in this room that didn't have PR that, you know, CE OS out in
• 17:16
  China right now. That's that's the big threat to
• 17:19
  these guys, right? Like over the long run, it's
• 17:21
  not, it's not a big threat in your term.
• 17:23
  And, and you know, we, we speculated this for a while and
• 17:27
  now it's coming to fruition. But Mike Seaver, when he got
• 17:31
  into the partnership with, with Starlink, that was a huge
• 17:35
  tactical blunder, right? Because he enabled that company
• 17:38
  to enter the mobile market to get mindshare.
• 17:41
  And, and then obviously they went to go buy Echostar and now
• 17:44
  they're going to go into the AWS 3 auction and they're going to
• 17:47
  buy more spectrum. And that guy's gone.
• 17:50
  He, he's not at T-Mobile anymore.
• 17:53
  And then Deutsche, Deutsche Telecom put in one of their,
• 17:55
  their close guys who's the current CEO of T-Mobile now.
• 17:59
  But then Deutsche Telecom CEO specifically said, you know,
• 18:02
  we're very wary of Starlink and we know that we're dancing with
• 18:07
  the tiger well today or the lion.
• 18:10
  But today they, they just made it known like we are going to
• 18:15
  walk away from that partnership eventually.
• 18:17
  Like once we're able to negotiate this JV, we're going
• 18:21
  to walk away, right? And I think it, it, it's
• 18:26
  interesting because it, it's not definitive.
• 18:28
  So they still have to work stuff out and they're going to have to
• 18:31
  talk to regulators about it. But the writing is on the wall.
• 18:34
  Like I think, I think these three CE OS understand the
• 18:38
  competitive threat of Starlink and they understand for
• 18:42
  T-Mobile, they understood, they understand the solution that AST
• 18:45
  is bringing to bear and that competitively by enticing AT&T
• 18:51
  and Verizon letting them in. They're probably my guess is
• 18:53
  like they're going to contribute some amount of cash to this JV.
• 18:57
  They're going to contribute spectrum, the spectrum that the
• 19:01
  spectrum, 850 megahertz spectrum that AT&T and Verizon
• 19:04
  contributed or or they leased to AST.
• 19:09
  My guess is eventually that spectrum is going to find its
• 19:11
  way into this JV and then T-Mobile is going to probably
• 19:14
  contribute. I think T-Mobile has 800
• 19:16
  megahertz spectrum. They'll contribute spectrum.
• 19:19
  The company grain management. My guess that spectrum gets
• 19:21
  contributed to. But but yeah, this is huge,
• 19:26
  right? I mean, and, and the risk here
• 19:30
  is that maybe this Droid venture, the FCC might block it
• 19:35
  or the DOJ might block it. But I think it's going to be
• 19:37
  hard. I think it's going to be hard to
• 19:39
  do that from a consumer welfare point of view.
• 19:42
  This is going to just enhance mobile broadband service in the
• 19:46
  US. Like no 100% absolute coverage
• 19:49
  across country and it's going to be broadband.
• 19:51
  So from AFCC perspective like that's good for consumers.
• 19:56
  And then from a antitrust point of view, as I mentioned before,
• 19:58
  if the DOJ were to look at this, Starlink is becoming a fourth
• 20:03
  facilities base carrier, right? Like they I was going to talk
• 20:07
  about this before, but the fact that they got build up
• 20:09
  requirement on the AWS 3 spectrum that you know, all they
• 20:13
  have to do is just provide satellite service.
• 20:15
  They don't have to build out towers, that's huge.
• 20:18
  And I think that order from the FCC, by the way, probably helped
• 20:25
  prompt this JB today where where the FCC said, hey, for wireless
• 20:29
  spectrum, you can now use satellite coverage to for your
• 20:33
  build out requirements, right? Which which lowers the bar
• 20:35
  tremendously, right? Like if you imagine Charlie
• 20:39
  Ergen when he was trying to build out his network under Dish
• 20:42
  Network and Slash Echo Star, when you have that spectrum, he
• 20:45
  had to go build towers and he had deadlines where he had to
• 20:48
  build out cover like 50% of the population, 65758090.
• 20:53
  And the whole reason why he had to sell the company is he
• 20:55
  couldn't meet those deadlines, right.
• 20:56
  And this was under a previous FCC administration.
• 20:59
  I bet Charlie Ergen, yeah, he he got a lot of money in selling
• 21:02
  Echostar, but he's probably gnashing his teeth.
• 21:04
  He's like, man, I should have just did directed device, which
• 21:08
  he he he tried to at the end, but it was too late.
• 21:11
  But I should have worked with the FCC to get to have directed
• 21:14
  device meet my build out requirements, right.
• 21:16
  And so that changes the game. And so for Verizon, AT&T and
• 21:21
  T-Mobile like from a CapEx savings stands standpoint, they
• 21:24
  can use AST space mobile to meet coverage requirements.
• 21:28
  Now it's not just about dead zones, it's about also probably,
• 21:34
  it's also probably about, you know, pulling back on rule of
• 21:40
  towers, because if you're able to deliver 200 megabits per
• 21:43
  second in those areas, then what's the point of having a
• 21:48
  tower which costs each tower costs.
• 21:51
  There was a space mob member who kind of put some of the Angel
• 21:54
  numbers together, but it's, I don't know, 150, two, $100,000 a
• 21:58
  year to run those things. Like that's, that's tremendous
• 22:02
  savings. But yeah, today is, you know, I
• 22:09
  just like last time when Verizon was announced, I called Kook
• 22:12
  this morning and and we both were like jumping up and down.
• 22:16
  I mean, that sounds exciting because excited because I'm a
• 22:19
  bit hungover. I'm in Vegas right now.
• 22:21
  But but yeah, it's this is huge news.
• 22:27
  I don't know what else to say. Like, I think, I think the
• 22:29
  market is it's now I'm talking in circles, but the market is
• 22:33
  going. It's going to take time to
• 22:35
  digest this, but and there's going to be a bunch of bears and
• 22:42
  skeptics who are going to say, oh, you know AST, this is bad
• 22:45
  for them in the long run because the economics are going to get
• 22:47
  crushed. No, it's not AST has 50% revenue
• 22:53
  share in those three-year exclusivities with AT&T and
• 22:55
  Verizon, at least for the three years that's going to that's
• 22:57
  going to say the same. Now, maybe once T-Mobile gets
• 23:00
  added and then, you know, there's going to be, they're
• 23:03
  going to at least be at 5050 for the next three years.
• 23:05
  But then once that burns off 3 years from now, then yeah, maybe
• 23:11
  that turns into 6040 or something.
• 23:13
  Maybe the economics change, but it's a lot better than what
• 23:16
  Starlink was giving T-Mobile, which was Starlink got 80% and
• 23:19
  T-Mobile got 20%. And of course, like people will
• 23:22
  say, well, you know, the service is not that great.
• 23:23
  I mean, no one's really using the service.
• 23:25
  Uptake is awful. Based off of what T-Mobile
• 23:28
  experienced with T Satellite. Yeah, that service sucked.
• 23:31
  It was a piece of shit. It was intermittent texting.
• 23:34
  It's not different. That's not the same as
• 23:36
  broadband. This is like whole different
• 23:38
  ball game, right? Whole different ball of wax.
• 23:40
  And that's where, that's why T-Mobile was desperate to join.
• 23:46
  And, and here we go. They're they're, they're in,
• 23:48
  right. And so, yeah, I, I can't, this
• 23:54
  is, this is insane. Like I, I going back five years,
• 23:59
  it was only AT&T and then 2024 the impossible happened.
• 24:05
  Verizon joined and now it's T-Mobile.
• 24:07
  So it's 100% of the market. They can't now AST can't say
• 24:11
  that explicitly, nor can these carriers.
• 24:13
  But for the smart kids in the room, our PR went out the same
• 24:18
  time as their PR management has been coordinating with these
• 24:21
  companies in making this happen. Management, I mean AST
• 24:26
  management and AT&T is quarterbacking this entire
• 24:30
  thing, which is what they were doing with AST and Verizon was a
• 24:35
  junior partner. Now T-mobile's showing you as a
• 24:37
  junior partner. The PR didn't come directly from
• 24:41
  Verizon. It didn't come directly from
• 24:43
  T-Mobile. It came from AT&T.
• 24:45
  And then the the CEO's of Verizon and T-Mobile were quoted
• 24:49
  in the release, right. And that's that by the way,
• 24:51
  that's what happened to Verizon too.
• 24:52
  When when they announced that they were joining with AST,
• 24:57
  Verizon didn't put out the massive PR.
• 24:59
  It was really from AST. And then AT&T welcomed Verizon
• 25:03
  into the fold. This is the same thing.
• 25:07
  But yeah, this is it. It's going to take time.
• 25:10
  You're gonna have skeptics say, I guess you know there that the
• 25:15
  economics are a long run are going to get crushed.
• 25:18
  Who cares who care if it goes from 5050 to 6040, but you have
• 25:22
  100% of the most profitable market in the world and by the
• 25:25
  way, every market around the world is going to see what's
• 25:27
  going on the US and say, you know what shit I need to follow
• 25:30
  their lead. I'm going to add AST.
• 25:32
  This is this is like this is the end game, right?
• 25:36
  This is like the Infinity stones you got all of them.
• 25:38
  It's over now obviously the company has to execute and they
• 25:42
  got to get batch one out batch 2, batch 3.
• 25:44
  But right now I don't give a shit about that.
• 25:46
  I don't care because like this is more important that we've
• 25:52
  locked up all three. And so now we've got time, we
• 25:55
  have even more time to get. Obviously we want to get
• 25:58
  consolation up as quick as we can, but but from a competitive
• 26:02
  standpoint, we've locked it all up.
• 26:05
  And so yeah, it's pretty, I'm beside myself.
• 26:10
  It's pretty insane. But yeah, you're going to have
• 26:14
  like Tim Farr and all these other people question this or
• 26:18
  that or try to spin a different way.
• 26:20
  There's there's no other way to spin it.
• 26:24
  But yeah, if anyone has any questions or comments, please
• 26:27
  leave them down and I'll try to go through them.
• 26:31
  I mean, by the way, this is what happened in Europe.
• 26:33
  Like the, the framework already exists, like AST formed
• 26:36
  satellite connect Europe. And so this joint venture, it,
• 26:41
  it, it's following the same playbook like which is what AST
• 26:45
  deployed with Vodafone and then they brought on Telefonica and
• 26:48
  Orange and others. It's unfolding here in the US.
• 26:52
  Like some people might be like, well, why would they do a joint
• 26:55
  venture? I don't understand this.
• 26:57
  Well, it's because AST did it in Europe.
• 26:59
  And it's what makes sense for the carriers.
• 27:01
  If you're going to try to trust each other, you're going to
• 27:04
  contribute spectrum, you're going to have some governance
• 27:07
  mechanism in place. And then because, because
• 27:09
  obviously they're competitors, right?
• 27:10
  Like you can't, they're not, they're not going to be full,
• 27:15
  they're not going to trust each other 100%.
• 27:18
  And so by having this JV framework like that helps kind
• 27:20
  of grease, grease the wheels and get things going.
• 27:26
  Let's see someone's asking how do you think the unit economics
• 27:29
  working in a world where there's potentially a shared competitive
• 27:31
  D to D system across carriers? That's a good question.
• 27:37
  I'm not, I mean, we'll find out. But I, I think ultimately, at
• 27:39
  least for the next three years, it's going to be 5050 and then
• 27:43
  it's eventually, you know, maybe that gets compressed a bit, but
• 27:47
  at the end of the day, like it doesn't matter, right?
• 27:49
  Like if you have 100% of the market and if they, if you're
• 27:55
  the sole provider and you're integrated with the networks of
• 27:59
  all these companies. And yeah, from a pricing
• 28:03
  perspective, like your negotiation, your negotiating
• 28:06
  leverage is going to be very high, right?
• 28:08
  Because the the ability to RIP and replace you doesn't exist.
• 28:13
  So yeah, let me just look through some of the questions
• 28:19
  here. I think that's it.
• 28:24
  I'm going to pause there and maybe I'll do a follow up follow
• 28:29
  up a space later. But yeah, this is massive news.
• 28:32
  I think everybody should be super bullish.
• 28:36
  There's a short interest by the way, is like 67.7% million
• 28:40
  shares, which is the all time high.
• 28:42
  There's going to be people who read this and it initially, but
• 28:47
  once they peel back the layers of the onion and management
• 28:50
  starts talking to sell side research analysts, they're going
• 28:53
  to get it right. And this, you know, make no
• 28:58
  bones about it, this is AST Space Mobile bringing on
• 29:01
  T-Mobile. And yeah, this is it.
• 29:07
  I don't know what else to say. But anyway, thanks for joining.
• 29:11
  We'll talk again shortly. Yeah, I'm going to try to digest
• 29:15
  this a bit further and maybe I'll do a space later.
• 29:17
  But yeah, what an amazing day and Congrats, everyone.
• 29:23
  And this week, my guess is we'll see that Batch 1 shipment news
• 29:28
  go out and it's going to be an amazing end of May and June,
• 29:33
  July, August, I mean, basically throughout the entire year.
• 29:36
  So yeah, Congrats everyone, take care.
• 29:47
  Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
• 29:50
  If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
• 29:53
  podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
• 29:57
  media, or leave a rating and review.
• 29:59
  To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
• 30:03
  sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 30:06
  next time. We're doing something very, very
• 30:11
  big and I think with this technology we can really affect
• 30:14
  billion lives. AFP Space globally is the only
• 30:17
  company that had food technology to deliver cellular broadband
• 30:22
  connectivity directly from space to do everyday smartphone.
• 30:26
  People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless,
• 30:30
  regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
• 30:32
  know that it's connected by satellite.
• 30:35
  Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
• 30:39
  with the MMO.