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Anpanman - AST SpaceMobile + Vodafone News = SatCo JV Comes Into Focus · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:06
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
• 0:10
  We just basically come your phone and be seamless regardless
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:29
  Hey everyone, thanks for joining on short notice.
• 0:32
  We've got some big news today and I just wanted to cover it
• 0:37
  also, I guess for for when obviously it's a it's a crappy
• 0:42
  macro environment. It's been risked off the entire
• 0:44
  week. High growth, high beta names
• 0:47
  have been coming off. And so I think a decent amount
• 0:52
  of it has to do with government shutdown finally, you know,
• 0:55
  coming having an impact on the market as well as interest rate
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  picture before I think it was pretty dovish.
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  Whereas then the, you know, Powell the last week came out
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  and gave a more bounced arrear saying that another cut was not,
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  you know, a given and that they would have to reassess
• 1:16
  information as it comes. But you know, based off of data
• 1:19
  that has come since. And obviously, you know, the
• 1:22
  other thing that's exacerbating this is the fact that the
• 1:25
  government shutdown. So a lot of the information that
• 1:28
  the market is keying off of is all private like payroll numbers
• 1:31
  and, and other other data that's non government sourced cause the
• 1:37
  government's closed. So we can't get, you know, jobs
• 1:39
  data, inflation, any of that stuff.
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  So I think the uncertainty in the market is kind of
• 1:44
  snowballing and the sooner the government comes out or shut
• 1:48
  down the better. And you know, this impacts a lot
• 1:51
  of things. For example, at the SEC, they
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  can't review filings. And so some of these companies
• 1:58
  are looking to go public that have S1 reviews or, or SPAC's
• 2:03
  that have reviews. Those are getting delayed as
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  well. But yeah, there there's a whole
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  host of reasons for the market de risking at this point.
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  And quite candidly, it's probably healthy that there's
• 2:16
  some profit taking cause a lot of these stocks have run quite,
• 2:21
  quite hot over the past year. And so I think having a pull
• 2:25
  back is is pretty normal and healthy and helps build a base
• 2:29
  for the next move, which, you know, I'm still pretty
• 2:33
  optimistic on the market. And so anyway, the market's
• 2:39
  going to do what it's going to do.
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  Every stock has some element of beta, you know, code movement
• 2:42
  with the market. And so we're seeing that
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  especially with our favorite stock AST space mobile, even in
• 2:47
  the face of very positive news, you can't really fight the tape.
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  So anyway, a rarity this morning the the company's AST and
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  Vodafone announced some very important information regarding
• 3:03
  on the Satco JV in particular. I'll just go through kind of a,
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  the key points that I put in a tweet.
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  But yeah, I mean, the key piece of information is that it for
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  all intents purposes, it looks like Vodafone and, and AST Space
• 3:18
  mobile and any additional and no partners, they sign up for Satco
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  JV, which is this joint venture where AST is going to be a, you
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  know, less they're going to own or Vodafone's going to own a
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  majority of that entity. AST is going to be kind of the
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  minority owner, but we'll provide the satellites and you
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  know, operations. But for all intense purposes
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  that Sacco JB is going to be controlled by Vodafone and any
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  other EU members of EU companies or M and OS that is that join.
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  And the reason why that's important is that the EU is very
• 3:51
  focused on sovereignty. So they want to have data
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  sovereignty, you know, any information that's collected
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  from the EU, whether that's, you know, calls, videos, data that
• 4:04
  needs to originate in the EU and land back in the EU.
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  Of course, if it's going elsewhere, then it's going
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  elsewhere, but they want to have complete control of that.
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  The reason why this whole topic became more acute is that during
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  Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the use of Starlink was pretty
• 4:23
  prevalent among the Ukrainian forces.
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  And then, you know, depending on who you talk to or what you
• 4:28
  believe, it seems as if based off of how SpaceX wanted things
• 4:35
  to go or what they, they weren't comfortable with, they turned
• 4:38
  off the network at at certain points in time.
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  And so I think that was a big red flag for the EU and that
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  they need to have a solution that they have complete control
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  over. And so Sacco JV initially was
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  formed to do that, but now we're starting to see the outlines and
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  the details of what Sacco JB is right.
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  So in particular today there was a big press release which gave
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  more information. And so I'll just kind of go
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  through some of the points here. The key thing is that, and this
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  is backed up by some of the research we've done, but it, it
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  sounds like either a portion of the Block 3 mid band Bluebirds,
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  this is the, the Bluebirds that will be focused on L&S band
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  spectrum. Some portion of that is going to
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  be exclusively dedicated to the European Union and their
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  operations there. And so are there, are there
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  satellites? Does that mean that they're
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  going to go dark over other places and you just light back
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  up over Europe? That's one possible, one
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  possibility, like that's true exclusive use or when they do
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  fly over Europe, then they will be handed over to European
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  operations. And then and then when they are
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  out of Europe, they will be handed off to other other areas.
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  And so it's a little unclear if if it's this is actually an
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  entirely new shell of satellites that will just be focused on
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  Europe or it's just some, you know, some portion of China will
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  be allocated to Europe or part of the same shell.
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  But it's just that those particular satellites within the
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  shell are going to be dedicated to Europe.
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  But anyway, whatever it takes, I think is a key here where this,
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  this ATCO JV, whatever gets European, the European Union
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  comfortable, I think they're going to pursue.
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  And you know, there's, I think some people had questions this
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  morning about whether that makes economic sense.
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  It does and I'll explain why shortly here.
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  But yeah, so the other thing is AST filed with the ITU, they're
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  registering this entity through Germany and this this mid band
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  consolation, the joint as I mentioned before, the Sacco
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  joint venture will be controlled by Vodafone and other EU
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  companies. You know, AST will have a
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  minority stake. You know, if that's 49 percent,
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  40%, I mean, I don't really know at this point, but obviously
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  they are going to ASU and the economic and my guess it will be
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  50% of whatever's generated by Sacco JV.
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  And then and then the other 50% will go to Vodafone and partners
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  depending on, you know, where the usage is happening.
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  But yeah, there's a lot of ways to split this pie.
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  And the, the other interesting thing about the Sacco JV is that
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  because you have this new entity, it allows for that
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  entity to raise capital. And so MN OS can come in and and
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  buy an ownership piece of that JB also perhaps even governments
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  as well could invest. And there's a whole host of ways
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  you can structure this, but it gives you a ton of flexibility.
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  And that's, I think the key thing here is that today the two
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  entities that control S band spectrum in Europe are two US
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  entities, 1 is Echostar and the other one is in Warsat.
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  And I'll talk a bit more about that in a little bit.
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  But but yeah, the key thing is, is that this, this actor JV will
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  have full sovereignty and the kill switch and operational, you
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  know, control ground stations, Control Center, all that stuff.
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  So this truly is going to be a European solution, which when
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  you look at how Europe is thinking about the world, you
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  know, they've already put forward this proposal for the
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  Irish constellation, which is going to cost over €10 billion,
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  at least that's what they think. And a decent amount of that
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  functionality is going to be focused on directed device.
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  And so they're thinking about just like researching and
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  starting up a whole new constellation themselves from
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  scratch. Whereas I think it's going to be
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  pretty difficult to not consider Sacco JV to step in the shoes of
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  of what they need because it's already you know, if you've got
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  a a large number of European M and OS that are backing this,
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  who ultimately have control the customer anyway and will be
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  distributing the service. And then you know this, this
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  service as well as going to provide emergency services just
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  like first net in the US and of course probably military
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  services as well. Why would you build another
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  consolation that's going to cost a lot of money that has no
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  guarantee of success, whereas these guys are pretty much far
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  along down the road. But but yeah, so a very
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  important point is that this entity and, and now we see it
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  formally in a press release, they are going to pursue 2
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  gigahertz MSS spectrum in the EU that comes up for reallocation.
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  That spectrum is 60 megahertz. In total it's 230 by 30 paired
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  bands and that comes up for reallocation in May of 2027.
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  As I mentioned before, the two key holders of that are 1 is
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  ViaSat Slash, Inmarsat and the other one is Echostar.
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  I think given the structure of this JV and all the MNO partners
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  involved who have, you know, a ton of subscribers and and are
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  well positioned, I think it's going to be hard for you not to
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  give Sacro JV and allocation. My guess is at least 10 by 10
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  megahertz of Caraband 10 by 10 of megahertz of uplink and
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  downlink spectrum. And it's interesting 'cause
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  you're seeing some kind of veiled threats already around
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  this yesterday and Global Stars earnings call where they, I
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  guess the first I would mention that they specifically said
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  we've seen the press out there and we make it a policy not to
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  comment on it, which is kind of funny because they're the ones
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  who floated the rumors. Fun game they're playing there.
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  But they if you listen to the global Star call, they pretty
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  much like try to emphasize, we were the first to put together a
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  global spectrum and we have a ton of strategic value.
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  And they're basically trying to shop the 15% of capacity that is
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  not being used by that is not contractually obligated to
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  Apple. And so they kind of hinted at
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  potentially even leasing out that 15% to somebody else.
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  Now whether that's SpaceX or AST or somebody else, who knows.
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  But it's clear that seems like to me what they're trying to do.
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  I don't know if they were going to sell the company.
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  I mean that that is a is another kind of angle that they're
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  probably trying to leverage against Apple to do something or
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  maybe it's a threat, but leasing out the 15% of capacity that
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  could make sense. And as long as they can
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  coordinate that properly with whoever releases it, that could
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  work. However, one of the key comments
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  in that conference call is that they talked about how, you know,
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  we've got global spectrum and some others who have certain
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  rights. They, they mentioned this
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  specifically certain others who, who've purchased spectrum
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  recently, they may not have rights in the future.
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  And so when I heard that, I immediately thought of the fact
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  that Echostar has this reallocation coming up in May
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  2027. I did a little bit of, you know,
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  surface level research and I think Echostar today, for what
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  it's worth, they run like a very narrow band IoT network on that
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  spectrum across Europe today where I can tell they've got
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  like maybe 3000 devices on it. They don't report as a separate
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  revenue line. And for from what I can tell it,
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  it just doesn't seem like they have much traction there.
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  And so my guess is that they're going to have a pretty tough
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  case going in front of the EU saying, hey, we want our, we
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  want that reallocation of the spectrum.
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  And then he's going to say, well, what did you do with it
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  over the past, you know, decade? And they'll say, well, we have a
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  little IO T network on it, but we promised and we're going to
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  do a lot more with it. I and and then the other, the
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  other party is vice at Inmarsat. They actually run a decent
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  amount of, I guess they, they have a pan European network that
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  runs airline connectivity over that network.
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  And so, and that that is integrated with the threshold
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  network too. So there's like from what I
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  understand, good or smooth hand offs between those two networks
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  And so it looks like they're actually using it.
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  So my guess is that in Merced Virus that probably get a
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  reallocation that they can make a compelling case.
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  But I think in Merced Virus that and then Echo star in the face
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  of what we are seeing being formed right now in this
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  juggernaut, Satco JVI think it's really hard for them to try to
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  keep ASDL and then ASD Poly gets a 10 by 10 allocation and then
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  maybe in the upside scenario they get 15 by 15.
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  But I'm guessing the EU probably wants like 2 to three players in
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  the minimum. They have two.
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  They had two before, but maybe they'll do 3.
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  But at a 10 megahertz allocation, you know, that's
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  that's given the spectral efficiency what AST can do.
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  That's 40 megabits of downlink speed and, and you know, maybe
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  somewhere similar 40 megabits of updating speeds.
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  But going back to Echostar, as I mentioned before, you know, when
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  they go back to write the E regulators in 2027, the not
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  Echostar, but this company called Starlink and they're
• 14:26
  going to say, well, we're going to do all these great things
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  with that spectrum. But then the EU regulators, you
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  know, it'll be up to them and politicians, which you know,
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  the, the CEO of of or that leader, the owner of SpaceX
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  tends to be heavy-handed in European politics.
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  A lot of Europeans don't like that.
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  And so that's probably not a good thing, right.
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  And then I think the the architecture of Starlink 2 is
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  not, is not conducive to respecting borders in Europe
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  because it's regenerative. It these beams just, you know,
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  kind of sloppily go over Europe, but you can't direct them.
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  They're not fixed cells. And so, you know, maybe in, in
• 15:12
  version 3 of, of Starling satellites, they'll, they'll
• 15:16
  come up with a solution there. But you know, who knows?
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  I, I think, I think an important thing to remember because, you
• 15:24
  know, the media has kind of latched onto all these
• 15:27
  capabilities that SpaceX is telling people about V3
• 15:29
  satellites. But as we've all known in the
• 15:32
  past and we as we know in general, like space is hard and,
• 15:35
  and you can try to pursue different features, but they
• 15:39
  take time and a lot of what is put for may not come to
• 15:44
  fruition. For example, this past week, I
• 15:46
  think we saw that SpaceX is going to create within V3,
• 15:51
  they're going to have data center capabilities too.
• 15:53
  And so they're just slapping on all kinds of functionality.
• 15:56
  Not sure how that's going to impact the satellite's
• 15:59
  performance when when the satellite is doing fixed
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  wireless, it's doing directed device and it's becoming a data
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  center. So kind of do revolve at master
• 16:09
  of none type of approach. So so we'll see.
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  I'm not really sure how to handicap how successful they'll
• 16:16
  be on matching from the performance of AST space mobile
• 16:20
  satellites. But anyway, going back to the
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  list, yeah, so AST is going to pursue 2 gigahertz MSS spectrum,
• 16:29
  which makes sense. And I think by having a European
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  entity that's controlled by Europeans, funded by it and
• 16:37
  that's going to provide broadband connectivity to all
• 16:40
  those MN OS and your customers, I think the entity is going to
• 16:44
  be uniquely positioned to win an allocation.
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  And when it comes to the question of, well, are they
• 16:51
  going to put up as an actual like separate constellation and
• 16:54
  is that worth the cost? If, if the EU is willing to give
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  you 10 by 10 megahertz of paired SPAN spectrum.
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  And the way that you, the EU does this is they don't charge
• 17:05
  you for it. They just allocate it to you.
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  And then on a country by country basis, you negotiate what usage
• 17:11
  fees are there, which, you know, I think are obviously going to
• 17:14
  be reasonable. And, and if you are doing that
• 17:17
  with a local M&O partner, they're going to be able to make
• 17:21
  a compelling case to the local governments that, you know, we
• 17:24
  need these services. It's going to create economic
• 17:26
  activity. It's going to provide, yeah,
• 17:29
  more services for our our consumers.
• 17:32
  And it also in terms of like an emergency network response.
• 17:37
  I mean, we saw them in Spain during the the floods, like all
• 17:41
  the network connectivity, the terrestrial towers all went out.
• 17:44
  And boy, they could have used a real, you know, satellite backup
• 17:49
  network. And so that's that's going to be
• 17:50
  important. But yeah, so Sacco, JB is going
• 17:53
  to be well positioned as I mentioned before and the company
• 17:55
  reiterated it today, they have interest from M and OS in 20
• 18:00
  over across 21 EU member states. And so that's that's really
• 18:04
  solid. That's good.
• 18:07
  And then because of this entity that's going to be European
• 18:10
  based, you know, it's going to have Luxembourg headquarters,
• 18:13
  operational center in Germany and, and research and and
• 18:19
  operations and production in, in Spain.
• 18:22
  That becomes a very attractive solution for Europe.
• 18:26
  And So what what are the benefits?
• 18:28
  Well, EU governments for example that as I mentioned before the
• 18:32
  €10 billion IRIS program, some portion of that they could get
• 18:36
  funding. There's import expert bank
• 18:38
  funding as well. And then you know you have EUMNO
• 18:43
  prepayments and potential investment into Sacco JV.
• 18:47
  And then the other interesting kind of wrinkle here is that
• 18:51
  Ariana, that launch vehicle becomes what what is now
• 18:56
  economically kind of marginal for them to go potentially try
• 19:00
  to use Arian. When you're doing launches that
• 19:04
  are backed by European governments or you know,
• 19:07
  commercial entities, then I think there's subsidies that are
• 19:09
  available for Arian. So having another launch vehicle
• 19:13
  that is a very big positive as well.
• 19:17
  The other thing that was kind of released in this news today is
• 19:21
  the fact that they are seeking to provide public protection and
• 19:26
  disaster relief which is called PPDR connectivity in Europe.
• 19:30
  And so from whatever, I don't think Europe has any of that
• 19:33
  today. But by leveraging you know the
• 19:37
  MNO cellular spectrum, they can do that.
• 19:41
  And then by layering on top of this that this MSS spectrum, the
• 19:45
  two gigahertz, then that system becomes really robust.
• 19:48
  And so this is a big kind of mission for the EU.
• 19:54
  They call it EU critical communication system.
• 19:57
  And and you know, as we all know, there's a lot of European
• 20:00
  countries, a lot of different interests.
• 20:03
  What trying to bring everybody together to come up with the
• 20:07
  solution that's economic and actually works is tough.
• 20:11
  But by having Vodafone lead the charge and you know AST Space
• 20:16
  Mobile fighting the attack, you're able to go to.
• 20:20
  European governments and say, hey, look, we've got a turnkey
• 20:22
  solution now and it's going to go live in 2026 and the mid band
• 20:26
  constellation is going to start going up in 2027.
• 20:30
  Use this. And so I, I don't think I don't
• 20:33
  think it's going to be this is going to be the end all.
• 20:36
  I'm sure Europe's going to still develop something, but this is
• 20:39
  going to be a critical piece. Or maybe on the upside, this
• 20:43
  does become the first net of of Europe, which I think especially
• 20:48
  given what's happened to Ukraine and, you know, having a defense
• 20:54
  capability. And, you know, we've seen all
• 20:57
  the puzzle pieces, right? Like AST Space Mobile through
• 21:00
  Fairwinds and other primes has already been doing work with
• 21:04
  NATO. And so, yeah, puzzle pieces are
• 21:08
  all there. Like this is going to be a
• 21:10
  solution for Europe. Let's see here.
• 21:16
  So as I mentioned before and it it's kind of cool that they
• 21:19
  outlined it here. They talk about how Sacco will
• 21:23
  be you know, leveraging existing carrier MNO, sorry, MNO cellular
• 21:28
  spectrum, which is what Block 2 constellation would be doing.
• 21:33
  And then you know they will also be able to use that that the the
• 21:39
  Block 2 satellites to deploy PPDR emergency coverage which
• 21:43
  they outline the exact frequencies which is 698 to 7,
• 21:47
  O3, 753 to 758 and then 733 to 736 and 788 to 791 megahertz
• 21:54
  spectrum. This is all cellular spectrum
• 21:56
  that can be used by the satellites that we are on the
• 21:59
  custom deploying. So that coupled with the two
• 22:03
  gigahertz that hopefully they can get a location that's going
• 22:06
  to be huge. The other thing is I, I guess
• 22:09
  another thing I'll mention is that for the people who are
• 22:13
  really detail oriented, there is some legal dispute between
• 22:18
  Inmarsat and AST Space Mobile where Inmarsat who holds some of
• 22:24
  these, you know, L&S band licenses around the world.
• 22:28
  They, they are say, they say that through this Legato
• 22:31
  agreement, which I think they're wrong, but through the lot of
• 22:34
  their interpretation of what they had all negotiated
• 22:37
  precludes AST from pursuing L band spectrum globally.
• 22:42
  Whereas I think what's interesting and we can learn
• 22:45
  this from Saudi Telecom is that I don't think that precludes M
• 22:51
  and OS from pursuer. Obviously, well, M and OS can
• 22:53
  pursue L band spectrum on their own, which is what Saudi Telecom
• 22:56
  did in their auctions. I'm sorry, they, they pursued S
• 23:01
  band spectrum in their auction in Saudi Arabia and this is 2
• 23:04
  gigahertz, but then L band spectrum is unused in Saudi
• 23:07
  Arabia. And so I'm guessing that
• 23:09
  Southern Telecom will get their hands on that as well.
• 23:12
  And so they have 60 megahertz of S band because they, they won
• 23:16
  the entire thing exclusively. And then they will probably get
• 23:18
  the L band as well. And then ASDC film will will be
• 23:22
  able to light up both of those in Saudi Arabia, which is going
• 23:25
  to be very powerful. And I think also in in other
• 23:27
  countries where Saudi telecom has coverage.
• 23:31
  And so what's interesting about Saco JV is that either Saco JV
• 23:38
  or Vodafone directly can pursue L band spectrum probably.
• 23:43
  And and then lease that back out to AST, which, you know, whether
• 23:48
  or not whose argument, legal argument has higher, higher
• 23:52
  standing or, or who's going to win that ultimately, I think,
• 23:55
  you know, that can be settled through economic means or also,
• 23:59
  I think just by the very nature of AST space model's partners
• 24:04
  globally, MN OS can could just pursue L band spectrum and just
• 24:08
  lease it back to them. And so that kind of gets around
• 24:11
  that potential hurdle, although I think they'll probably be some
• 24:15
  worked out, you know, solution in the future.
• 24:17
  But anyway, today, huge news, you know, this, this, it's
• 24:23
  interesting that all this news are released on Friday morning,
• 24:28
  European time. And of course we have earnings
• 24:31
  update on Monday. And so my guess is they, they
• 24:35
  got the Saudi telecom news out when they did, which was two
• 24:39
  weeks ago. And then they got this news out
• 24:41
  today, Friday on the, the dawn or sorry, the eve of, of
• 24:45
  earnings. Because there's probably going
• 24:46
  to be a lot more stuff to cover on Monday.
• 24:50
  And you probably, you know, they probably want the new cycle to
• 24:53
  digest this information over the weekend and then and then they
• 24:57
  can talk about it hopefully in more detail on Monday.
• 25:00
  But but yeah, this is a game changing announcement.
• 25:05
  I think this puts AST Space Mobile and more importantly
• 25:10
  Vodafone and its partners in the pole position to get an S band
• 25:14
  spectrum allocation in May of 2027.
• 25:18
  I mean if you kind of go through a list of of what Europe wants
• 25:22
  from their solution and the key thing being sovereignty.
• 25:25
  But you know something that's locally owned operated has the
• 25:29
  buy in of of M and OS locally that are not going to have to
• 25:34
  compete. But there are are you're
• 25:37
  deploying the solution seamlessly and providing to
• 25:40
  their customers like this takes every single box.
• 25:43
  And the benefit for AST is that they are going to get that two
• 25:49
  gigahertz of spectrum allocation.
• 25:52
  It opens up more launch options, it opens up a full new host of
• 25:58
  funding alternatives as well. And so I think when you compare,
• 26:03
  and maybe I'll do this at some point over the weekend, but if
• 26:06
  you compare Sacco JV compare, you know, compare that to what
• 26:10
  perhaps I guess Inmarsat Mysat could put forward.
• 26:15
  I mean, they don't, they're not working with them in any MN OS.
• 26:18
  And then you think about what Echostar is doing today.
• 26:22
  It's a small IoT network. And then of course Starlink is
• 26:25
  going to step into their shoes. It'll be interesting to see what
• 26:29
  Starlink proposes to the EU to try to, you know, call their
• 26:32
  fears around sovereignty 'cause I think, you know, for the
• 26:36
  people who know AC space mobile well there, you know this
• 26:40
  information. But for those that don't,
• 26:42
  Starlink runs a totally separate network and so they don't
• 26:44
  integrate into the MNO core. They, they, the your information
• 26:50
  goes into the Starlink network. It can be passed around to the
• 26:53
  different satellites and over different countries and landed
• 26:56
  at a different country. And so and Starlink has full
• 27:01
  control that right. And so the EU, my guess is that
• 27:05
  any proposal they put forward is going to be dead on arrival
• 27:08
  because that's not attractive for for E regulars.
• 27:12
  They want something that's fully owned by Europe and controlled
• 27:16
  by Europe. And this takes every zoom box
• 27:19
  and, and AST has been, it's like a master plan, right?
• 27:23
  They've been playing chess. They, they have R&D facilities
• 27:27
  in Europe. They've got a production like a
• 27:29
  massive production facility in, in, in Spain.
• 27:33
  And so maybe they'll like assemble some components in the
• 27:35
  US, but then they'll ship it to Spain and they'll assemble it
• 27:38
  all there and then they'll go throw it up on a Ariana 6
• 27:41
  rocket. I mean, there's a whole host of
• 27:42
  like ways that they can make European regulators super happy.
• 27:46
  And so the key thing is getting that spectrum.
• 27:49
  And I think they're, they've really positioned themselves
• 27:53
  well. And so, you know, whether coming
• 27:56
  out of the that 2027 reallocation, if there's two
• 27:59
  players that are selected or three players, I, I, I can
• 28:03
  almost guarantee or I, I would bet, you know, it's really I
• 28:08
  already, I already am that placing a massive bet, But I
• 28:11
  think AC space model will be one of those players.
• 28:14
  And, and that's going to be massive, right.
• 28:17
  And I think the company has talked about this in the past
• 28:19
  where there will be multiple shells.
• 28:22
  And so there's going to be a low brain constellation shell, a mid
• 28:24
  bang constellation shell. And then, you know, we've, we've
• 28:27
  talked about it jokingly in the community, but I mean, actually
• 28:30
  seriously that there could be a military shell like not
• 28:33
  Bluebirds, but blackbirds and maybe even particular
• 28:37
  government. So they're willing to pay for
• 28:38
  it. They might get a specific shell
• 28:40
  when you have ramped up to what will be initially 6 satellites
• 28:45
  per month, but then eventually 12 satellites per month once you
• 28:49
  finish the consolation that that capacity can be used
• 28:51
  productively for additional, you know, additional satellites and
• 28:56
  shells. And so, so yeah, it's an
• 28:58
  exciting time. Maybe I'll pause there.
• 29:01
  The market's about to open. Let me just see if there's any
• 29:04
  questions. Let's see, aren't Block 2
• 29:09
  satellites already designated to satisfy sovereignty concerns?
• 29:12
  If so, this is not so nothing more than saying there, but it
• 29:14
  will be Block 3 satellites that can use the band spectrum.
• 29:18
  Block 2 does alleviate a lot of sovereignty concerns, but I
• 29:23
  think the companies are going a step further today and, and
• 29:29
  putting for this notion of a fully European solution, which I
• 29:33
  think, as I mentioned before, like for European regulators
• 29:37
  and, and companies like that's, that's like the gold standard,
• 29:41
  right? Like that's, that's they're
• 29:42
  trying to achieve. That's what they're trying to
• 29:44
  achieve. And so putting that in front of
• 29:46
  European regulators, I just, I can't see them trying to develop
• 29:51
  their own homegrown solution. I think one of the AST space
• 29:54
  mobile people have put it well, like this, this makes Iris kind
• 29:57
  of dead on arrival. I, I actually agree with that.
• 29:59
  Like, I think this is going to be the European solution.
• 30:02
  I think there's a high probability of that.
• 30:05
  And gosh, what a basketball stroke, right?
• 30:07
  Like these guys have have been cooking this up for, for well
• 30:11
  over a year. And yeah, so I, I, I, I think
• 30:19
  the current technology, it does guarantee sovereignty, but it's
• 30:23
  still owned by AST. But this is a true European
• 30:26
  solution and I think it's what Europe wants.
• 30:29
  And so, yeah, I think we're well positioned to win that business.
• 30:34
  Let's see, what does it mean to have your own consolation?
• 30:36
  Do they own some satellites because satellites are supposed
• 30:38
  to be shared across the world? Do they own it when it's just
• 30:40
  over around Europe? I did cover that before and it
• 30:43
  could be a a whole host of different, you know, ways to
• 30:48
  kind of cut it. But I think what in this press
• 30:50
  release, just my opinion, what it means is that Satco JV is a
• 30:53
  European entity. It will have ownership of a
• 30:56
  select number of satellites that will provide coverage over
• 30:59
  Europe and those satellites will be exclusive to Europe.
• 31:03
  And economically that makes sense because you know the
• 31:07
  economic return on the size will be very high.
• 31:10
  They'll you'll get European funding for them.
• 31:12
  And then the other, the most important thing is that you'll
• 31:15
  get a spectrum allocation, which we know spectrum 2 gigahertz of
• 31:20
  10 by 10 paired MSS spectrum or 15 by 15 paired.
• 31:23
  That's worth multiple billions of dollars, like, I don't know,
• 31:27
  maybe ten, $20 billion just off the top of my head that would
• 31:30
  make any expenditure in the satellites to deploy that
• 31:35
  minuscule, right? If you can imagine the amount
• 31:39
  of, you know, 100% coverage, this is not this is actually
• 31:43
  overlapping coverage through the trash network.
• 31:45
  But yeah, the economics that are going to be staggering.
• 31:49
  So I think that's that's going to be well worth it.
• 31:52
  Could Alon at some point try to buy Asti heard a rumor from
• 31:55
  Altitude. OK, so there was this
• 31:58
  newsletter. Suppose the boomer from this
• 32:01
  guy, James Alticher, he's he's this guy who has like a
• 32:05
  newsletter and he, he sells subscriptions by kind of saying
• 32:08
  outrageous things. And I remember during the
• 32:11
  cryptocurrency, like during when Bitcoin was kind of taken off,
• 32:15
  maybe it was like 10 years ago, his newsletter was all over it
• 32:19
  and he was claiming to be like one of the first people to buy
• 32:22
  it. But anyway, I, I, I don't think
• 32:25
  it's T well, first of all, Abel Avalon has voting control.
• 32:31
  So no one can come in and try to, you know, muscle their buy,
• 32:34
  buy shares and try to force the company to sell itself because
• 32:37
  he has full, full control of the company and he's not, you know,
• 32:42
  able Abel is not playing for $100 or $200 Like he's looking
• 32:47
  to truly build the next trillion dollar company.
• 32:50
  And and this opportunity for him is is more personal in that he
• 32:54
  wants to connect the unconnected just given his background having
• 32:57
  grown up in a poor area of Venezuela.
• 33:00
  This is not he's not selling. And I don't think I think SpaceX
• 33:05
  is going to do just fine on their own.
• 33:07
  They're going to develop a solution.
• 33:08
  There's going to be two players. But I think even from a
• 33:11
  regulatory standpoint, I don't think SpaceX would be allowed to
• 33:15
  buy ASD Space mobile. Perhaps somebody else who's not
• 33:18
  involved in in satellite communications, but in
• 33:21
  particular that that deal SpaceX trying to buy ASD Space Mobile
• 33:25
  seems really anti competitive versus but the US government and
• 33:30
  what governments around the world and and what businesses
• 33:33
  want around the world, which is choice.
• 33:35
  They want at least two choices perhaps 3 and so I just don't
• 33:39
  think it makes sense. Is there a way to listen to
• 33:42
  these spaces later? Yes, there is.
• 33:44
  This is recorded. So you can just play it back
• 33:45
  later. And then there's a, a, a
• 33:48
  wonderful HD space mobile member red ROM.
• 33:51
  He actually records these as podcasts.
• 33:53
  And so when he records this one and others that that have
• 33:57
  happened in the past, you can just go back and listen to him,
• 34:00
  which is probably more convenient than having to use
• 34:03
  Twitter's interface to listen to it.
• 34:04
  But but yeah, you can listen to it.
• 34:07
  It's it's being recorded. Anyway, I'll pause there.
• 34:11
  I think that's probably a decent enough kind of overview of what
• 34:15
  was announced today. I, I get it and the market
• 34:17
  sucks. It's risk off.
• 34:19
  And you know, some people are like, well, why isn't the stock
• 34:22
  reacting to the scenario as well?
• 34:24
  I don't think any stocks or most stocks in particular are
• 34:27
  reacting to positive news. And it's right now until I think
• 34:32
  the the US government comes back online, reopens that and we get
• 34:37
  a a Federal Reserve, which I think after seeing some of the
• 34:40
  recent economic data, I think it's going to be compelling
• 34:43
  enough for them to continue to cut rates.
• 34:46
  I think without those two things like the right now the the
• 34:50
  investing environment is not very constructive.
• 34:52
  But you know, from what we've seen is that it sounds like the
• 34:55
  US government is going to be reopened fairly soon, fingers
• 34:59
  crossed. So, so we'll see.
• 35:00
  But in the meantime, yeah, just stay focused.
• 35:03
  Like this is a huge step forward.
• 35:06
  And we've got a quarterly update on Monday.
• 35:09
  And so, yeah, it's a very exciting time.
• 35:12
  And yeah, the market stinks, but that's that will be, I think
• 35:18
  that will be temporary. But what we know is there's a
• 35:21
  significant amount of catalysts that are coming out for the
• 35:23
  company. And when you kind of think back
• 35:27
  on the last three weeks of Verizon definitive agreements,
• 35:31
  you know, we basically got all of our spectrum, the the new
• 35:36
  Legato spectrum and SPN spectrum that we're pursuing all that's
• 35:39
  been incorporated into the next three GPP release and that means
• 35:44
  into handsets. And then Saudi Telecom 10 year
• 35:47
  agreement worth at least $1.8 billion.
• 35:51
  There's minimum revenue commitments there, which is
• 35:52
  insane. I mean, the company already has
• 35:54
  a book of business, which is probably going to be a few 100
• 35:58
  million a year from Saudi Telecom as it as one of the
• 36:01
  anchor attendants. And Saudi Arabia is not even
• 36:04
  like when you're bigger mobile markets, but but yeah, just
• 36:07
  imagine building more of these these together, right?
• 36:15
  And, and it's kind of funny because like I think someone
• 36:18
  pointed out Bank of America has like a $200 million revenue
• 36:20
  target for maybe like 2026 or 2027.
• 36:25
  But that's Saudi telecom is going to be just that piece in
• 36:28
  of itself. But yeah, so, so we had that
• 36:30
  news last week and then of course, this news today.
• 36:34
  And I think we've got an earnings update on Monday.
• 36:36
  So anyway, markets suck. Hang in there, this is kind of
• 36:42
  the day-to-day noise. Make sure you're not on margin
• 36:45
  so that you you can hang in there and write a volatility.
• 36:49
  And yeah, we'll see what what happens on Monday when the
• 36:53
  company announces quarterly update and gives gives guidance
• 36:57
  on you know that will be our first quarter of real revenue.
• 37:02
  You know the cart as I've mentioned, as the company has
• 37:05
  mentioned before, they're targeting 50 to 100 million of
• 37:08
  revenue in the second-half of this year.
• 37:09
  So obviously Q3 is being recorded tomorrow in Q4 they'll
• 37:13
  be guiding to to some extent. But but yeah, it'll be a very
• 37:17
  interesting call. And yeah, an exciting time.
• 37:22
  But anyway, I'll, I'll pause there.
• 37:24
  We'll, we'll do this again probably sometime after the
• 37:27
  quarterly update. And I'm going to dig into the
• 37:30
  announcement today a bit more and think about more of the
• 37:33
  implications. But yeah, thanks for catching up
• 37:36
  everyone, and we'll talk to you soon.
• 37:38
  Thanks. After listening to the AST Space
• 37:42
  Mobile Podcast, if you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to
• 37:46
  help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about
• 37:49
  it on social media, or leave a rating and review to catch all
• 37:53
  the latest news about. AST Space Mobile.
• 37:56
  Make sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
• 37:59
  next time. We're doing something very, very
• 38:05
  big and I think with this technology we can really affect
• 38:08
  billion lives. AFT Space globally is the only
• 38:11
  company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
• 38:15
  broadband connectivity directly from space to do everyday
• 38:19
  smartphone. People will just basically turn
• 38:21
  their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
• 38:24
  We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
• 38:27
  satellite. Our role is to bring this into
• 38:31
  reality, always in partnership with the animal.
• 38:40
  Listen, Waffles.