Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - The Great Carrier Realignment

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Anpanman - The Great Carrier Realignment · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:07
is the AST Space Mobile podcast. Just basically from the phone,
0:14
be seamless, regardless of where you are.
0:16
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
0:18
satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
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have is very, very, very large. Large.
0:27
Everyone, thanks for joining. I couldn't help myself.
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I got to do another space and my friends are waiting for me.
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I've been Vegas and instead of having fun, I'm like thinking
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about this transaction and yeah, just just still beside myself
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that it actually happened, but I didn't want to just follow up on
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the space earlier today. Just to summarize real quick
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before I add some additional thoughts for those that haven't
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seen ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile announced a joint venture today
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where they're going to try to pull resources, including
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spectrum in order to provide a better, you know, directed
1:05
device service to consumers. And as part of that, in this
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press release, they specifically talk about pulling resources
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and, you know, working together. They're obviously they, I think
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they have an agreement in principle, but they haven't
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hashed out the actual definitive agreement yet.
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Obviously it'll be subject to DOJ and FCC approval, but for
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all intensive purposes, it seems like this thing's going to move
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forward. They made it open-ended because
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they obviously don't want to seem to be anti competitive.
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You know, they, they, this entity will face off towards
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satellite providers and, and integrate and negotiate a
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service. But I think it's important to
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understand that in the context of let's say, for example, ASD
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space mobile, I know there's some people who grab skeptics or
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bear saying, oh, maybe this will crush margins.
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One thing this joint venture can't do is set prices, right,
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because that's actually anti competitive.
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And so if there's any idea that this daughter is going to
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somehow browbeat satellite providers into a certain price,
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that's actually illegal. So just keep that in mind.
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And there there's obviously in this press release, it doesn't
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say anything in that regard. But taking a step back, this
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press release came from AT&T and it was, it was written and
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drafted by AT&T and then has quotes from Verizon and T-Mobile
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similar to Vodafone Satco JV where they announced the
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formation of that. And then you had quotes from a
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few other carriers, Orange, Telefonica in Europe and
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obviously that excluded Deutsche Telekom, which interestingly,
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and by the way, some of the comments I'll make today include
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some color from management. And also Scott Wisniewski just
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did a a call with investors at Deutsche Bank.
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And so, you know, there'll be some Nuggets from there too.
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But but yeah, this press release came from AT&T.
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And as we all know, AT&T has been working very closely.
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They are the primary USMNO and they investors and on the board,
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but they're very close to AST space mobile and this press
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release came from them. They are the quarterback, the
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junior partners are Verizon and now T-Mobile.
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And so AT&T is the one who's leading network integration,
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deploying service, and for all intents purposes, like we're
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talking very specifically about AST, Facebook, but this has
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nothing to do with Starlink. This has nothing to do with
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Global Star. I think it's important.
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If you take a step back, you know, there's some skeptics out
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there. For example, I'll just show you
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like how convoluted and crazy people are.
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Tim Farrar tweeted 4 hours ago. I'll just read this exactly.
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The AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile JV for DTD is clearly designed to
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present a united front in any negotiation to make use of
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Starlink's next generation system.
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But it emphasizes multiple players and is in addition to
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existing arrangements. Like in what world is it like
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what is this guy spoken like? How can you make that
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proclamation when in fact we know the opposite is true?
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I will say that my conversations with management, they they were
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well aware of this JV going on. They were, I don't know to what
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extent they can disclose like how much are their part of it,
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but clearly by AT&T sending the press release out and then can
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the company simultaneously sending their their press
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release out, it's unequivocally like you can't deny that they're
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working together. And I was, you know, I was told
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by the company that, you know, T-Mobile and this was this was
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said actually at Deutsche Bank. T-Mobile want once wanted to
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join and become part of this service, right.
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And so I think it's important because like this press release
4:55
today and this formation, the joint venture, they're not
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excluding anybody. They're not going to exclude
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Starlink proactively. They're not going to exclude
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Global Star, all these things. But the only service that is
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broadband usable is AST. And in order to get through
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regulators, they're not going to tell regulators like we're
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excluding Starlink or all these other things.
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But Will Townsend specifically said in the lead up to this
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where he was briefed on it like clearly, and by the way, some of
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the mainstream media like investor business Daily, when
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talking to some of the stuff, the smarter St. analysts, like
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they in Roth capitals today, for example, like everyone knows
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that the MN OS are threatened by Starlink.
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And so this joint venture is to develop something that is going
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to be, that's going to pull common spectrum.
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It's going to have 850 megahertz.
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You know, eventually the, the spectrum that's being
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contributed by AT&T and Verizon to ASD.
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That will my, my assumption will go, we'll fall under this JV
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eventually after the mutual exclusivity ends.
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And then AT&T or sorry, T-Mobile is going to have to come to the
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party with something. They're going to have to come
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with terrestrial spectrum. That's our cellular spectrum
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probably you know something the low band and that this is an
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important differentiation. These other competitors like
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Starlink and Global Star, they're all MSS, they're all mid
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band spectrum, but they don't have coverage, they don't have
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low band threshold spectrum. There's only one satellite
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company that is doing that today, and that's AC Space
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Mobile. Now there's a smaller company
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called Link, which has had a really difficult time getting
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off the ground. And architecturally they're just
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not going to get there. They, they also use low band
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spectrum. But but yeah, they're, they're,
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they're not scalable. I mean, there's a whole host of
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reasons why that service is not going to make it.
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And it's similar in architecture to Starlink and that the, you
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know, bees in within the satellite, the phased array is
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tiny, by the way, like this is the company including Starlink
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to link and Sterling for like, hey, we can create small
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satellites and provide the same level of service.
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And then guess what? They all, like are throwing that
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plan away and they're all trying to move towards larger phased
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arrays because as I see cats out in the the crowd there, as we
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all know, a large phased array makes more efficient use of
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spectrum and is able to deliver a cleaner signal to your phone.
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So, so, yeah, that that the press release today, which
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simultaneously AST put their press release out as well like
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these these bears out there who are fighting saying that somehow
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this is related to Starlink. It's not it's absolutely this JV
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is all about AST and I guess it is related to Starlink in a
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sense that Starlink is a a real threat.
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It's a real threat Elon Musk has made.
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No, he hasn't hidden his ambitions of becoming a wireless
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carrier and what I think was the accelerant for this joint
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venture, which the timing is very interesting, right.
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So Elon Musk got approval to buy Echostar spectrum.
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And the interesting thing that came out of that approval is, is
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a watershed event for the industry, right?
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It's the first time that build out requirements for terrestrial
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spectrum. Just remember like AWS 3 is
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approved for terrestrial use, cellular use that spectrum.
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The build out requirements are now, they can now be met by
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satellite, which has never been in the case before in in the
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history of wireless, the wireless industry.
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And so that has huge implications.
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Like if you're imagine if you're Charlie Ergen and you bought all
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the spectrum back in the day, you try to create a, a new
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wireless competitor and the SEC said, you've got to build out
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that spectrum to cover 50% of the population in three years
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and 70% of the population in four years.
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And, and so, so, so on and so forth.
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The issue with Charlie Ergen was like, he ran out of money and he
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couldn't get there, right? And so he kept asking for
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extension. Then eventually the FCC said,
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hey, you guys aren't going to get there.
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I'm going to take the spectrum away from you.
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And he got forced to sell the company.
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Lo and behold, then SpaceX buys it and says, hey, we're going to
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light the spectrum up. The granted SpaceX is a more
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credible party that can do that. The FCC comes back and says,
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hey, you know what, we've, we're changing the rules.
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When you buy threshold spectrum, we're going to allow you to have
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this hybrid approach where in urban areas you have to use
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towers, but in areas where it's not dense, you can satisfy the
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requirement by deploying satellite service of a certain
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speed, which by the way, SpaceX won't get there for I think
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Catsy said another nine years or 10 years, which is what AST
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space mobile actually can meet that requirement today.
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But you can use satellite to light up that spectrum and meet
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your build out requirements. And so Charlie Ergen, he's
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probably livid because, you know, he he kind of frowned out
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too late because remember, he tried to deploy a directed
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device service, but it's too late.
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But he could have worked with ASTI guess if AT&T in
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partnership with AT&T and they could have lit up that spectrum,
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you could have held on to it. But but this is a game trader
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for M and OS. Imagine like in the future,
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instead of building out towers in suburban areas and also think
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about decommissioning towers that cost 1 to $200,000 to
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operate a year, you can now meet your requirements for coverage
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with satellite. Forget about dead zones.
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Like let's talk about zones where there's not many people or
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there's not a quantum of people that make it economic.
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Like this is a game changer, right?
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And so now AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, they can go back to
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the FCC and say, hey, look, you know, you, you approved space XS
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build out requirements Starlink by just saying that they could
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have a certain amount of satellite coverage at at a
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certain speed. What if you ease your
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requirements for coverage for us, like we're going to start
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pulling back on, on some of our towers.
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And when we, when AT&T goes deploy, I, I got to look and see
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the order I think that was given to AT&T is that they've got to
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build up the 600 megahertz spectrum that they bought from
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Echostar. They got to build that out
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quickly. But if I, if I'm AT&T and I saw
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that order, I'd say, well, hold on a second.
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You, you said Echostar can meet the obligations by satellite.
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I got this guy called ACC mobile.
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Like I can light it up and meet the obligation too that way.
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And so this, this opens up like a whole can of like possibility
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for satellite providers, right? Because now you're a cap X
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saving machine like cost synergies are tremendous, right?
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And as Kathy pointed out, like Spectrum, because it can be more
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deployed efficiently in a cost effective manner, like it
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becomes more valuable, right? Because if you can deploy a
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resource that is going to generate, I don't know, let's
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just say I'd deploy resource that generates a dollar value
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and it cost me $0.50 to go deploy it.
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And maybe I value that at 10 bucks.
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What if, what if that, what if it for that dollar of revenue,
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let, or let's say because of satellite, I'm able to actually
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extract $1.20 cents a value out of that.
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And the cost to deploy it actually goes from $0.50 to
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$0.30. So is that special more $10 or
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is it worth $15? It's probably worth $15.00,
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right? Because your profit margin just
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went up. And so that's why this, this is
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like so transformatory. This is why this JV, the timing
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of it, it came for a reason. Like after the, the SpaceX got
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approval for Echostar, which I think was a big surprise to
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everybody. They're like, wow, they got
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approval that quickly from the FCC and of course AT&T got
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thrown a bone and then AST 2 as part of it.
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My guess is like they, they, they approved their consolation.
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So keep in mind, like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, these are
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these are like CEO level discussions for the three
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companies to work together. And they are now they've agreed
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in principle to work together. They've got to obviously
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memorialize that into a definitive agreement.
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But this is huge like for the people who are who poo poo
12:39
direct to devices as a market, like these are carriers saying
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this market is so important and it's going to drive so much
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growth and value for us that we're going to, we're going to
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pull our resources together and make sure we do it right.
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Like that's so you're, so, you know, the, the cognitive
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dissidents of like, OK, the carriers think this is like the
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best, the best thing since sliced bread.
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And yet these like financial analysts and industry
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consultants say the market isn't it.
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OK, yeah. Like they're going to T-Mobile.
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The uptake for T satellite isn't that great and the economics
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aren't great. Well, first of all, Starlink
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takes $0.80 of the dollar that that they, they, they charge
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customers and T-Mobile only gets $0.20.
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So yeah, the economics stink because Starlink's taking out of
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it. But then on top of that, this
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service sucks. It's a piece of shit.
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Like it's, it's SOS messaging texting, it's not broadband.
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And so if you're a consumer, like why would you pay for
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texting? Like you get that free from
13:35
Apple and global star. What I want as a person who
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values my time and needs to be connected and my family, like if
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I'm, if I'm, it was funny. There was a, there was a Amazon
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commercial. And this is important because
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this is a highlight of the future.
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There was an Amazon commercial of this guy in a camping tent
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with his daughters. And he's like, and he took a
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picture of his skin and they're and he's like using AI to
14:00
analyze the rat, what kind of rash it is.
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And it's Poison Ivy. And it's Amazon touting their
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medical services and AI. But I was watching that and I
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was, and I was saying to myself, like, OK, that's really
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interesting. But how is that phone connected?
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Like they're out of nowhere camping.
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How's that phone doing AI diagnostics of this guy's rash?
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It has to be connected by satellite.
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And of course that's Amazon sees that and they're trying to like,
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they're going to eventually try to make global star that
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connectivity. But that Amazon use case in that
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commercial does not work without AC space mobile.
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And, and that, that's, that's the Holy Grail, right?
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Because like people forget that the money, the amount of money
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that I'm going to pay for a GB of data in the absence of any
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service. Like if I'm in a place and
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there's no connectivity, I'm going to pay a premium, just
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like when I, when I get on a plane.
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I mean, nowadays, like some planes are offering it for free.
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But if I'm out skiing and I need to and I need to see stock
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prices of, you know, AST space, mobile VM, like trading around
14:58
some options or something, I need connectivity.
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I can't wait for 20 to 30 minutes of intermittent like low
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band connected. I want broadband, I want to see
15:06
what's going on. I want to see stock price
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charts. I want to see news.
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I want like if you're a remote worker and you're on Zoom,
15:14
imagine like you're, you're on vacation and you're, you know,
15:18
you want to be connected and yet you can't, I mean, everyone's
15:21
had that experience, right? Like you're going to pay,
15:23
whether it's part of your monthly plan or you're going to
15:24
pay a day pass in order to make that happen.
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And if it's your professional job that's online or if you're a
15:33
salesperson, it's important to get a deal done.
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You're going to pay right? You're and, and texting SOS
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messaging, it's not going to cut it.
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You can't do zoom over that right?
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Or you can't do FaceTime or you can't do audio calls.
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And if you're a doctor and someone contacts you, maybe it's
15:49
one of your patients and, and they need some assistance, like
15:52
you're going to need to see the X-rays, right?
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I mean, I went through this with my son who, who fractured his
15:57
wrist. Like they're going to need to
15:59
see X-rays and write a proper diagnosis, right?
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And so this, yeah, it, it's important that there's only one
16:08
provider today that can do broadband.
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And, and that provider is AST and it's deploying its
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consolation. It's the only one that's using
16:14
low bands cellular spectrum. No one else is doing that.
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Everyone else is basically using MSS right.
16:21
And in Starlink, somebody pointed this out today, which I
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didn't I didn't really hit me until they pointed it out.
16:28
But Starlink is about to go public.
16:30
They were on the roadshow. It's it's been happening kind of
16:32
informally now, but kicking off full swing and and and deals
16:36
going to price in June. The carriers are, I mean,
16:40
T-Mobile like what would want? The timing is uncanny, right?
16:44
Because like they're, they're exclusively with, with SpaceX
16:47
and Starlink ends in June slash July, right?
16:50
And so, yeah, this is, and by the way, this is kind of like
16:55
this is fait accompli. I don't see the the cats out of
16:57
the bag. Like T-Mobile is pretty much
16:59
saying like we're walking from Starlink with us, right?
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They might continue to the service to some extent, but
17:05
someone had asked like, why don't they just announce it
17:07
after the fact? It's like, well, you have to,
17:09
you can't have no service if, if the exclusivity ends and, and
17:14
Starlink catches 1 of this and a yank service from you, you can't
17:17
leave people hanging, right? And so the way that T-mobile's
17:21
going to market this, they're going to say, oh, you know, T
17:22
satellite, we're expanding it. It's going to include ASD space
17:26
mobile service. And by the way, like these two
17:29
things can actually run together.
17:30
They're not going to run T-mobile's not or sorry,
17:33
Starlink's not going to run great.
17:34
But AST just like for AT&T and Verizon, once it's integrated
17:39
into the network core and you have a seamless hand off and you
17:43
know, all the menu of the packages that you're going to
17:46
provide to your to your customers, it can be all
17:48
customized like that. You know, once AST is
17:52
integrated, it's going to be some people talk about like
17:55
competitive dynamics, like years from now, it's going to be hard
17:57
to remove AST, right, because it's going to be such a critical
17:59
piece of infrastructure Today. Someone said there was an
18:03
investor question to Scott asking what happens like if you
18:07
get all three working with AST, can't they beat them up on
18:09
price? And Scott's point was like, this
18:12
is a growth driver for these MN OS, like this is an exciting new
18:15
product. The last thing you want to do is
18:18
be petty and beat, beat up AST over price because ultimately
18:22
they're trying to generate more revenue.
18:25
And, and as long as AST grows, they grow, right?
18:27
And this is a, this is not about trying to drive cost savings.
18:30
This is about growing your Tam and building a growth business,
18:34
right? And so, and as I said before,
18:37
like these three carriers, they can't collude on, you know,
18:40
trying to ratchet down the price on the AST, which by the way, I
18:43
think it's important to know in the press release it talks about
18:46
all existing carrier agreements will, will hold in place with
18:50
the satellite operators, right? AST has, I believe this is me
18:55
estimating. I, I think it's a three-year
18:56
exclusivity once a service is launched and it's mutually
18:59
exclusive for Verizon. I think it's probably somewhere
19:01
between 2:00 to three years. And so once AST special service
19:05
launches in 20, let's say 2027, that's going to be in place
19:09
until 20/30/2029, right? T-Mobile, on the other hand,
19:13
that exclusively ends in a few weeks.
19:16
So this JV and the timing of the announcement it, I mean, it's,
19:20
it's, it's, it's clear as day like what it's for and what it's
19:24
targeting. And that's, that's T-Mobile
19:26
joining AST and, and you know, some of the going back to Tim
19:30
Farrar, he said, let's see. I mean, this is just crazy
19:34
unsurprising that AST is trying to claim it for itself, for
19:38
themselves. But it's clear that AT&T and
19:39
Verizon, which by the way, like this guy is making assertions
19:42
based off of stuff he's reading through his, his like fucked up
19:45
lens, but he has not spoken to the companies.
19:47
He's the carriers hate them. They don't speak to him.
19:50
He's like, it's clear that AT&T and Verizon want more
19:52
alternatives. In addition, other DTD providers
19:54
are now going to have to follow Starling's aggressive pricing.
19:58
What what does he mean by that? Starling's aggressive pricing on
20:01
texting. We're talking about broadband.
20:04
And and by the way, like this Tim is asserting that ATAST was
20:10
not a part of this. And so about Starlink, then
20:11
explain where, where I'm still waiting.
20:14
I know you're waiting, but I've been seeing the press release
20:17
from Starlink. Where is that press release that
20:21
was like this was six hours ago. I, I haven't seen the press
20:23
release from Starlink or global star.
20:26
Like my, my guess is those executives are finding about the
20:30
out, finding out about this JV today.
20:33
It's important to understand that Starlink is, is the, the
20:36
core business is competitive with the M and OS.
20:39
You have the CEO saying, I want to become an M&O myself and I
20:42
want to compete. I also want to build my own
20:44
phone. So I'm going to compete with
20:45
Apple and, and, and Samsung and Android.
20:50
This JV it's, it's, it's clear as day.
20:52
It's like you, you could be, if you're a short seller, by the
20:54
way, like there were guys were kind of short the stock and, and
20:57
these Fudsters they were trying to push it below and it got to
21:00
like 7570 or 74 change, which I don't talk normally about how
21:05
aggressive they trade, but I was I was loading the boat today
21:09
because like the market just didn't get it in the beginning
21:12
And, and a lot of people are like, oh, this specialist
21:14
doesn't say AST, so maybe it's bad.
21:18
No, they need to get this thing through regulators.
21:21
They need to like tell regulators it's an open JV,
21:24
they're going to work with everybody.
21:25
But in the end, there was one company that went out with a
21:29
press release the same time that these guys did.
21:31
And, and those executives, by the way, you talk to executives
21:34
at AST, they knew this was coming.
21:36
They, they've, they've known that this has been in the works
21:38
and they've been working on it. If you were to go to ask Glenn
21:42
Shotwell at Starlink, which I don't know what you would say,
21:45
but they're probably surprised because I don't see their, their
21:48
press release. And, and in the end, like
21:52
Starlink is a, is a competitor. And, and this also applies to,
21:58
you know, this also applies to Amazon slash global star slash
22:02
Apple, like the MN OS have a friendly relationship, but it's,
22:07
it's, you know, they need each other with Apple, but they're
22:09
always wary of Apple trying to garner, you know, get more hold
22:13
of the customer and the value that they're selling to them.
22:15
And so I can tell you like with 100% certainty that that the M
22:20
and OS they don't trust Apple fully and they certainly don't
22:24
trust Amazon fully, right? And so this is them circling
22:28
their wagons and pulling together what is their most
22:31
valuable resource, which is spectrum, low band spectrum and,
22:35
and also customers, right? That they own the customer.
22:39
And so and the person, the, the company that's position to
22:44
deliver the broadband service that is working in cooperation
22:47
and not against them, which is what Starlink and and Amazon
22:51
will be doing is AC. And so I'm just kind of going
22:58
through this. Yeah, I mean, it's today it's
23:02
it's what I was telling people this morning is that this is
23:04
Verizon 2 point O like when AT&T signed their definitive
23:09
commercial agreement and May of 2024.
23:11
And then at the end of the month, Verizon came on as a
23:13
strategic partner where they contributed spectrum, made their
23:16
investment, entered in a partnership, which, you know,
23:19
eventually led to their commercial agreement as well.
23:22
This is that time. And yes, the market is going to
23:24
take time for people to digest it.
23:25
I saw a note from Bank of America where they're like,
23:28
well, you know, this is this is interesting.
23:30
It could, could open T-Mobile up for AST, but we're we're more
23:33
focused on launch, which I get that.
23:36
That's, that's totally fair. And by the way, like that's
23:39
going to come in the comment or the questions that that Deutsche
23:42
Bank today, the analysts or sorry, investors were asking
23:47
Brian Craft, a lot of the questions were focused on
23:49
production and cadence. But like, and that that's why I
23:52
like the stock prices about more today because people are focused
23:54
on that. But once they have time to
23:56
digest this more like to me, the stock should be well north of
24:00
100, right? Because like you've locked up
24:03
100% of the market and any fool who's trying to say that this is
24:09
somehow an agreement to better negotiate with, with Elon Musk
24:12
and, and put Starlink into, you know, give their customers to
24:16
Starlink, they're out of their mind.
24:18
They're completely, they've lost it.
24:20
They the, the, the mental contortion like a gymnastics to
24:24
try to come to that conclusion. Like they're insane.
24:26
And, and these are people who are, you know, they're wrong and
24:32
they can't admit it, right. Like Tim Farr here, there's like
24:35
a whole thread where he's trying to justify how somehow this is
24:39
good for Starlink and it's bad for AST.
24:41
And it's like, dude, read the room like it.
24:44
It doesn't get any clearer that AST press release went out the
24:47
same time as these guys and there's no Starlink press
24:49
release. There's no global star press
24:51
release. There's no Equatus press
24:52
release. These guys are all these people
24:55
other than AST are learning about it today.
24:58
You are not like they, they woke up, you know, me and Vegas at
25:00
5:00 AM just like every, you know, they woke up and read the
25:03
same release that, that, that everyone else is.
25:07
Whereas AST they've been working with the companies on this and
25:10
they issued their press release at the same time.
25:12
So but yeah, the, the Fudsters will say, well, they're not,
25:16
they're not named in it. Well, that's this, this joint
25:19
venture has to get through regulatory approvals, right?
25:21
And they cannot, they're not going to cut off service to
25:23
anybody. They're going to say they're
25:24
working with everybody. But clearly, and Will Townsend
25:27
pointed this out and because he was briefed, he was brought over
25:29
the wall and briefed this briefed on this transaction
25:32
before he said this is clearly a defensive move against satellite
25:37
operators, NT NS that are planning to go directly to
25:40
consumer and compete. And So what do you mean by that?
25:43
So Starlink today operates a completely separate network.
25:47
It's a roaming network. And the way that it works for
25:50
T-Mobile is you get an E SIM. So when you're off T-Mobile
25:53
coverage, then it switches to Starlink and it's, it's just
25:56
like if you were to go to Europe and you, you, you, you're on
25:59
Vodafone network, it takes over. That's very different than what
26:04
ASC is doing. AST is integrating completely in
26:06
AT&T and Verizon and, and eventually in the near term,
26:10
T-mobile's network and you are going to have a seamless handoff
26:13
between towers and satellite. And there's a lot of great
26:16
things in terms of efficiency, lower power usage, putting aside
26:20
the satellite architecture, there's a whole host of reasons
26:23
why you would do that. And you can also tailor custom
26:26
packages to the to customers what you want to sell.
26:28
AT&T's package is going to look different than T-mobile's and
26:31
it's going to look different than Verizon's, but from a
26:34
competitive standpoint. So, you know, there was a part
26:37
of me that was that was fearful this morning.
26:38
I was like, well, what does this mean?
26:41
Like, I guess could there be some antitrust issues or, or SEC
26:46
issues? So this is a way that's going to
26:47
be pitched to the regulators. The joint venture is going to go
26:50
to Chairman Carr and say, hey, look, we're going to have this
26:53
joint venture. We want ultimately the, the
26:55
consumer to have the best experience possible.
26:57
We're going to pull together our our spectrum and we're going to
27:02
make this economic where, you know, independently we're going
27:05
to negotiate economics because by the way, we have independent
27:08
economic agreements with ASTATT, three years exclusivity, Ryzen 2
27:12
to three years exclusivity T-Mobile on the come, they'll
27:15
they'll figure out something. They're going to go to the
27:17
regulars and say, well, this, this agreement or sorry, this
27:22
JB, ultimately what we're trying to do is provide a full seamless
27:26
broadband, true broadband experience for consumers.
27:29
Like it's a win. It's a win, right?
27:30
And then by the way, Starlink's going to come and say they're
27:32
going to complain and say, hey, we're not part of this, you
27:36
know, we're this is anti competitive.
27:39
And then, and then what AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile says, well,
27:43
you know, Starlink, you have been selling your service
27:47
directly to AT&T and Verizon customers, which we all know,
27:49
like you can get T satellite if you buy, if you get an E SIM.
27:54
And so you have the ability to on a stand alone basis, which is
27:56
what you already do with direct fixed wireless service to your
27:59
home, You're going to go compete directly for our customers.
28:02
And, and Alan said it to the public as part of the FCC
28:05
approval it that you've, you've become a facilities based hybrid
28:08
carrier. Like you're using Boost Mobile,
28:09
which by the way, happens to rely on AT&T to a degree, but
28:14
that's going to be a hard thing for must.
28:16
Like if you're a $2 trillion company, how can you say that
28:19
must can't compete against wireless carriers And, and
28:22
you've got what, 60 megahertz spectrum and granted, there's no
28:26
cellular spectrum, but you're going to be, it's not going to
28:28
be the best service, but it's going to be a good service or,
28:31
or it's going to be as good as you develop it.
28:33
Maybe you have to build, build bigger satellites or whatever,
28:35
But that's, that's called competition, right?
28:37
So from the SE CS perspective, they'll say cars are going to
28:40
have a tough time like not approving this, right?
28:42
Because he's given SpaceX and Starling every advantage to
28:46
develop their own system. So, so it'd be tough for him to
28:50
argue otherwise. And from the DO JS perspective,
28:53
they'll say, oh, this is good. You know, there's like there's a
28:55
fourth credible competitor coming to market.
28:57
Like you've got ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile and now you've got
29:01
Starlink mobile, which by the way, like they're, they're not
29:03
hiding, they're not saying that they, they, they've created this
29:06
brand, Starlink Mobile. They're they're buying, they're
29:09
going to the next AD BS3 auction, they're going to buy
29:11
more spectrum. They've got 60 megahertz
29:13
spectrum. Like that's, that's a lot of
29:14
value, right? And, and the FCC has advantage
29:16
to them by saying, Hey, you don't have to build out towers.
29:18
You can just deploy satellites to beat your build out
29:21
requirements. They, they made it so easy for
29:23
them to enter the market. So the DOJ is going to be like
29:26
that. OK, so you've got like Starlink,
29:29
they're going to become a credible competitor.
29:31
The wireless guys are picking AST for satellite coverage.
29:34
And then, you know, Amazon's coming to market with like
29:36
something eventually and 5-6 years.
29:39
This looks fine to me. And they'll prove it, right.
29:42
Or they might say like, well, you have to lease, allow
29:45
customers to. And this is the interesting
29:47
part. They, they might say, well,
29:49
maybe AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile as part of it's like
29:53
the Windows operating system argument.
29:54
It's like, well, you can't just pre install Internet Explorer.
29:58
This is the extreme, by the way. They might say, well, let people
30:00
choose which service they want. And this is where the company is
30:02
like I said, if it ever got to that point, like bring it on
30:06
like we have the best satellite, you know, technology, we can
30:10
deliver broadband. We can deliver 100 megabits per
30:12
second on previous generation. We get on the current generation
30:16
that's coming out 200 megabits per second eventually with MIMO
30:19
and mid band spectrum and and C band spectrum that probably gets
30:23
over a gig like, OK, yeah, I'll go toe to toe with like SOS mess
30:26
messaging and texting bring it. And so, so I, I truly think like
30:32
this joint venture, it's going to happen.
30:33
It's going to get approved. AST is in the pole position.
30:37
There's a reason why T-Mobile softened their language recently
30:40
and even talked about AST and and they throw Amazon in there,
30:43
by the way. So this is part of the
30:44
regulatory review of the record. When you talk about getting a
30:48
transaction through FCC and DOJ review, they're going to look at
30:50
quotes from everybody. And, and for the the fact that
30:53
AT and TS like, yeah, you know, we want competition satellites
30:56
and we, we're, you know, we think it's great that's going to
30:59
help approve this transaction, right?
31:01
But at the end of the day, like, if you don't provide something
31:04
that's competitive, then then it's not as if the companies are
31:07
going to subsidized some shitty service, right?
31:09
Like they're not going to use Starlink because it's a crappy
31:13
service. And, and then then their
31:15
incentivize also, by the way, like competitively not to use it
31:18
because Starlink is like, I'm here to eat your lunch.
31:20
I'm going to eat off your plate. Like, you know, I'm already
31:26
competitive with you for your fix your fiber, your broadband
31:30
at home business, like, and I want to take your mobile
31:33
customers, like who, who's going to work with them, work with
31:35
them. And so I just think it's funny
31:37
because like Tim Farrar, I mean, God bless his soul, he's been
31:41
wrong this entire way. And he's just today, which is
31:44
like the most desperate copium I've ever seen, where he is
31:49
drawing his own conclusions, which by the way, like I, I
31:51
spoke with AST management this morning and I was like, I don't
31:54
want to make sure like I understand the implications of
31:56
this and my conclusions were correct.
31:59
And Tim Farrar, who's kind of grabbing things out of the air
32:02
to make whatever shitty arguments he had in, in previous
32:06
weeks, months, years, somehow fit this like illogical puzzle.
32:10
He's still, he's still doing it. It's like, just admit you're
32:13
wrong. Like there's no, it's, it's
32:17
crazy. Like I, I'm just reading this
32:19
thread, which by the way, like, I don't, I don't see his stuff
32:21
because I haven't blocked, but somebody, somebody pointed it
32:25
out and then I read and I was beside myself.
32:27
But here, here's a fun one. But there's absolutely no
32:30
credibility to claims by the clueless cult that this is about
32:32
T-Mobile defecting, let alone wanting superior technology.
32:36
T-Mobile has simply concluded. And by the way, like he has not
32:38
spoken to T-Mobile. He hasn't spoken to Charlotte.
32:40
He he doesn't speak to anybody, but this is he's, he's speaking
32:45
with authority. T-Mobile has simply concluded
32:47
that D to the exclusivity isn't worth what Starlink is demanding
32:50
because customer interest and usage is too low.
32:53
No, I was told definitively that T-Mobile is defecting.
32:58
End of story. That's like period.
33:02
I, I have primary sources, I talk to them.
33:05
And so these, this clown, just like he normally does, I guess
33:14
there's like a few voices in his head and they kind of debate
33:16
each other and he's like, OK, this has to be the logical
33:18
conclusion. But but yeah, let me see here.
33:26
But yeah, it's funny because this guy, Tim Farrar, I mean,
33:30
again, like he retweeted the AST's press release and he said
33:35
unsurprising that AST is trying to claim it for themselves.
33:39
Yeah, they are because the press releases went out simultaneously
33:44
from AT&T, who is a ST's primary partner.
33:48
They, they are the ones who press release it, not T-Mobile,
33:50
not Verizon. They press released it and ASD
33:53
press released it too. And you speak to ASD space
33:55
mobile management, which Tim, you're more than welcome to pick
33:57
up the phone and call them. They will tell you that they've
34:00
been working on this and that it went out together.
34:02
And, and again, I'll throw it back to him.
34:05
Where's the Starling press release?
34:07
Where is global star press release?
34:10
Where is equities or bioshot? Where, where are their press
34:13
release? They're, they're nowhere.
34:15
So I'm just trying to read some more of this.
34:19
This is pretty good stuff he's put out there.
34:24
Like he. Yeah, this is like now, now he's
34:28
just making up stuff. The timing of this announcement
34:29
was clearly dictated by AT&T wanting to wait for approval of
34:33
the Echostar Spectrum deal. T-Mobile and SpaceX have been
34:35
arguing for a while about price renewal of exclusivity and
34:38
sleeks about the size of the deal.
34:40
What? What is he talking about there?
34:42
There's he's just drawing all these concluding about what AT&T
34:47
thinks or what T-Mobile thinks. He has no clue, I guess the
34:52
bigger question. And now, now he's starting to
34:54
ask questions, which is dangerous.
34:56
Like instead of just making assertions as fact, he's like, I
34:59
guess the bigger question is whether M and OS have socialized
35:02
this plan with the FCC already. Is it one of the factors behind
35:05
recent statements about wanting there to be multiple D to D
35:07
networks? My guess is like it has been
35:10
socialized with the FCC, but probably at a very high level,
35:12
but nothing in detail. And this is going to be a pretty
35:16
long process, right? Like once this agreement goes
35:19
definitive, then they'll take it to the FCC and it will be
35:22
probably a very long review. But in the meantime, that's not
35:26
going to preclude T-Mobile from starting to do some groundwork
35:30
with AC, right? And so do we see in June, July
35:34
some announcement that T-Mobile as part of its broadening
35:37
expanse to meet customer needs and give them choice enters into
35:42
partnership with AC Normal they're going to contribute
35:45
their PCSG block, the mid band spectrum that Starling's using
35:49
today. But they're going to they're
35:51
also going to give it, you know, on a non exclusive basis to AC
35:54
that can be a part of the transition or they're going to
35:56
free up some low band spectrum in 800 or, or or TT mobile has
36:00
600 megahertz spectrum I think as well.
36:04
But open some of that up at least in the the the non covered
36:07
areas and open that up for AC. Yeah, you could totally see
36:11
that. You could absolutely see that
36:14
personal lease go out in June or July.
36:19
And I, I wouldn't be shocked, right?
36:21
The other thing is that, and I, I kind of hinted at this too,
36:25
but, and this was covered in, in the call on Deutsche Bank, like
36:29
I think Blue Origin's going to get to, and this is what I
36:32
talked about, like how there's more big news coming.
36:34
I think Blue Origin's going to get FAA approval very soon.
36:37
You could see New Glenn for launch probably at the earliest,
36:42
maybe early June, but probably mid to late June.
36:46
And we're going to be cooking again with, with Blue Origin
36:48
after the, the two to three SpaceX launches, which I think
36:52
we have as this goes in this Deutsche Bank conference.
36:56
There's a handful of SpaceX launches and equivalents, which
36:59
I think is ULA Centaur and then a handful of, of Blue Origin
37:02
launches. And I think it's important to
37:04
note that this, this the old quote of, you know, one launch
37:07
on average of every one to two months that was actually for the
37:10
entire year, but that, that quote should be rescinded.
37:13
I think the company is now planning to launch every month
37:16
and there could be even 2 launches a month into the end of
37:19
this year. And the target is to get to 45
37:22
satellites by the end of the year that could slip possibly by
37:24
a month or two, but, but we're going to get there.
37:26
And so that does, you know, ultimately, if it slips by a
37:30
month or two, if you have 100% of the US market, it really
37:33
doesn't matter, guys. It, it absolutely does not
37:35
matter. And so today the news, yeah, I,
37:42
I think because it, it wasn't like couched and explicitly said
37:47
that the, the carriers are going to use AST, which I again, I'll
37:50
talk about, I'll emphasize that it's for regulatory purposes.
37:53
They need to get this JV approved.
37:56
They need to show that they're, they're going to have open it up
37:59
for competition to, to other satellite providers.
38:02
But end of the day, we know who can deliver the goods and which
38:06
company is aligned with carriers.
38:09
That's not Starlink. Strong Link is developing their
38:12
own stand alone business that's not Amazon.
38:14
Amazon ultimately wants to go direct to consumer.
38:17
They want to control that it's AC.
38:20
And so, so you're not going to see anyone explicitly talk about
38:23
this, but I understand the CE OS of some of the M and OS are
38:27
going to be at JP Morgan next week and perhaps I'll start
38:29
talking about this JV and they'll probably get questions
38:32
about it and it's going to highlight things quite a bit.
38:35
But it is good to note that that Investor Business Daily article,
38:42
you know, people get it. They understand the competitive
38:44
dynamics here and why Starlink is such a competitive threat and
38:47
why this JV was necessary in order to create a framework to
38:51
bring T-Mobile on on board. And for those people have heard
38:55
me probably more times than they want, you know, I talked about
38:58
this idea of, you know, how could, how could T-Mobile
39:01
actually join? It would be in a scenario where
39:04
Starlink's potential competition was too hard to ignore for
39:08
Verizon AT&T. And I think we're seeing that
39:10
play out now where T-Mobile going to Verizon and ATD.
39:16
Hey, look, you know, sorry, we, we let these guys in the hen
39:18
house, they're going out to the AW3 auction and they bought a
39:21
ton of spectrum. They're pretty much they want
39:24
it, they want it, you know, they want to take us out.
39:27
Please let us in and, and you know, you might AT&T, Verizon
39:31
might say, well, you know, tough shit, that's, that's, that's
39:33
your problem. And then the, the way that
39:36
T-Mobile Wood Forest it's way in would say would be, hey, if you
39:38
guys don't let us in, we're going to enable Starlink to
39:41
become a full-fledged wireless carrier by letting them
39:43
wholesale, you know, their network, you basically become a,
39:47
a virtual network operator. So they can get, you know, low
39:51
band coverage. And then in that, in that
39:53
construct, then AT&T, Verizon would say, OK, you know what, we
39:57
take that back, you guys can join and we will, we want to
40:01
have control over these direct to device services.
40:05
And, and what that means indirectly is, you know, we
40:09
can't let Starlink eat our lunch, right.
40:12
But beyond that, forget, forget about that.
40:14
Like we want to provide customers with true broadband
40:18
service. And that is AST and it's why
40:20
exactly why 1810 Verizon got together and they contributed
40:25
1850 milligrams spectrum because they want to improve.
40:27
The experience and the service and that's why T-Mobile be
40:31
brought in and they will contribute spectrum as well.
40:33
And, and so ultimately this, this, this service, which I
40:36
think the backbone is going to be low band spectrum is not
40:38
going to be MSS. It's going to be anchored by
40:41
these 3. And so yeah, it's going to take
40:45
the market time to figure this out.
40:47
There's sell side, you know, half of them are awful, a third
40:50
of them, half of them are awful, 1/4 of them are kind of OK.
40:55
And maybe there's a quarter of like Deutsche Bank, Brian Kraft,
40:57
like he gets it. But I assume over the next few
41:01
days as people kind of digest this information, institutions,
41:06
people like you and me, short sellers, the stock's gonna re
41:10
rate right? Like and you're, you've got this
41:13
on the back. So this news in of itself, the
41:14
stock could be well north of 100 today.
41:16
In my opinion, if, if T-Mobile was actually put into the OR
41:20
sorry, ACU was actually put into the press release, the stock
41:22
would be trading like 130 right now.
41:24
But but they're, they're making it a little harder for you to to
41:27
figure out because of that regulatory wrinkle where they
41:30
can't do that. So in the meantime, we've got
41:33
Blue Origin FAA imminently will get reapproved for launch.
41:38
That first batch shipment. Is it going to come out
41:40
tomorrow? Is it going to come out over the
41:42
weekend? Is it going to come out on
41:43
Monday? We're we're literally within
41:46
spinning distance of that press release going out.
41:49
So the cadence of positive catalyst like the news is about
41:55
the deluge is about to come, right.
41:57
So you got back one coming. It's going to launch in mid
42:00
June. There's some like speculation
42:02
that batch 2 is going to be shipped pretty soon, which which
42:06
gets you to a July launch date and there could be a potential
42:09
for not one, but two launches in July.
42:13
The other some other Nuggets. I would say that today at
42:17
Deutsche Bank, you know, Scott talked about Arian, that that
42:22
vehicle being able to launch four to five Bluebirds.
42:25
Japan, Mitsubishi Heavy, it looks like they can launch about
42:28
3 Bluebirds in the heaviest configuration.
42:30
And then India, Israel, because these are not the FM one, FM 2,
42:34
but composite Bluebirds. I think LVM three can actually
42:37
take two Bluebirds up. So it's actually a viable
42:39
vehicle to utilize. Obviously you got to get it to
42:42
India and we had fun watching drag the satellite through these
42:46
like Indian suburbs through the rain.
42:49
But but yeah, there's, there's options out there.
42:52
It's not just Blue Origin or SpaceX.
42:55
It's, there's, there's other options.
42:57
But anyway, I, I'm, I think I've done enough talking about it
43:02
today, but I did want to get back on and, and I know this
43:06
morning I was, I was a bit all over the place, but I did want
43:09
to provide some additional thoughts, You know, at, at
43:12
Deutsche Bank that overall, I think Scott's tone, I, I was
43:16
unable to take notes, but was very positive and bullish.
43:19
And as I mentioned before, I think a lot of people, a lot of
43:23
professional investors are focused on production cadence
43:26
and launch, which is totally understandable.
43:28
But what's getting lost in all of this stuff is this JV news
43:31
today. And you know, as when it was
43:34
announced I was buying, when it got down to like 7475, I was
43:38
buying even more aggressively because it's like the market
43:40
just doesn't get this over the next few days, it will get it,
43:43
it will understand it. The stock will be above 100.
43:47
And then with these catalysts, it's I think we're going to get
43:50
to all time highs in the very near term.
43:52
So with that, I'll end it. Thanks everyone for joining and
43:56
I'll catch up again soon. Take care everyone.
44:07
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
44:11
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podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
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44:20
To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
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sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
44:26
next time. We're doing something very, very
44:32
big and I think with this technology we can really affect
44:35
billion lives. AFP Space globally is the only
44:38
company that had Fluent technology to deliver cellular
44:42
broadband connectivity directly from space to do everyday
44:46
smartphone. People will just basically turn
44:48
their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
44:51
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
44:54
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
44:58
reality, always in partnership with the MMO.