Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Kook's Weekly - September 2

Transcript

Kook's Weekly - September 2 · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast.
0:10
Where we just basically come your phone be seamless
0:14
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by server.
0:21
Listen the. Opportunity that we have is
0:23
very, very, very large. OK, so it looks like this is the
0:32
solution. Sorry about that people.
0:40
It's all Tim Ferrar's fault. I don't know what to say.
0:42
The guy clearly has hacked my computer in an effort to stop
0:45
and say I'm for people. So I'll have a quick recap just
0:49
so we have a clean summary of all the A meetings I'll skip.
0:55
The first thing was basically just focus on the the
0:57
fundamentals. Don't be a panic can grow a pair
1:00
and quit whining. That's basically the conclusion
1:02
of the first tweet. The second was if you think you
1:06
can go to the beach and relax on the Friday before Labor Day,
1:12
then you're dead wrong and your life.
1:17
And so a lot of us were eagerly deciding to not go to the beach
1:23
and sit in front of our computers at various hours after
1:27
the close on Friday, thinking what would Scott do?
1:31
Scott would torture us all because he himself is working
1:36
non-stop and wants to make us earn it.
1:40
But this wasn't Scott's control. This was the FC CS control, who
1:44
probably is even more eager to make us earn it because of how
1:48
much we've sort of obsessed about each FCC docket over the
1:52
past five years. And we got what we wanted for.
1:56
So the punchline of this FCC filing is we get the next 20
2:03
launches approved. So we had filed for 243, I
2:07
think, but we're not about to launch 243 satellites.
2:12
If you remember, we've all been panicking over FM 1.
2:15
So let's quit panicking over FM one.
2:17
Let's now panic over FM one through FM 20.
2:21
How about that? So we get to launch the next 20
2:24
satellites, 2 of which are going to be at the lower orbit and
2:27
then 18 at the higher orbit, which is great.
2:30
Those satellites are going to have really good communication
2:35
characteristics and will not deorbit as much.
2:38
And otherwise they're very efficient.
2:40
Notable that SpaceX cannot operate or Sterling cannot
2:43
operate at that higher altitude without its service really being
2:47
a total POS. I believe if memory serves,
2:50
they're trying to operate at around 300 kilometers and we're
2:54
going to be operating at about 690 kilometers, which means our
2:58
satellites won't turn into shrapnel very quickly.
3:05
We will be able to keep our satellites up in the air, which
3:08
means that less of our cash will be going to maintenance cap
3:11
backs and more of it will be going toward expanding the
3:14
constellation, investing in R&D or potentially down the line
3:19
distributions of of some some form or another to shareholders.
3:23
But let's let's not get too far down that rabbit hole right now.
3:28
And many people said that we would never get to this point.
3:31
And so it's important to think back at the torture journey of
3:35
an FCC docket. I think I made a couple jokes
3:37
which I'll make a second time because everyone knows that
3:39
that's super funny every time when an on the fly joke is in
3:42
repeated and it's more pensive. And so in the docket we had a
3:46
bunch of hate mail from Starlink that was all just law fair and
3:50
total BS. And then we had about 2456.7
3:55
protest letters from astronomers in a deeply coordinated action.
4:02
Just basically a spam the docket.
4:05
Well, Brandon Carr obviously saw that and said sorry guys,
4:09
progress is coming until this was one approval for a man, but
4:16
a very large approval for mankind.
4:18
This is the beginning of the space mobile era.
4:22
We will have the next 20 satellites bringing us to a
4:25
total of 25 sort of big boy satellites plus one BW3.
4:30
This will get us to cash flow break even or positivity to very
4:35
good intermittent service levels.
4:37
But on the tipping point of true continuous broad service, more
4:44
importantly, we'll be past the point of no return.
4:47
It's a very exciting, there's very little chance the FCC is
4:50
going to stop us at these next 20 and then people might say,
4:54
well, they didn't get the service link.
4:57
Well, we'll get that. And so meanwhile we can operate
4:59
the service link under St. as which we've been doing
5:03
previously. But this gives us some more time
5:06
to finalize the deals with AT&T and Verizon.
5:09
We've filed the lease agreements.
5:11
Based on my best understanding with AT&T and Verizon, there was
5:14
some FUD over the weekend about Verizon, but the same Fudster
5:18
that said Verizon had actually changed their mind on us a
5:20
couple years ago. Not true.
5:23
And so I would ignore the Fudsters.
5:27
And this is just another stepping stone toward many
5:30
things, one of which is a particularly interesting event,
5:34
which will be the Verizon DA. All we can surmise there is that
5:38
there are conditions preceding for that Verizon DA.
5:42
So some condition needs to be met before they can sort of
5:46
release the hounds. I don't know if it was this FCC
5:50
approval and it very well might have been, but we'll only know
5:54
in hindsight. So the other thing that's
5:57
interesting that's happening as a parallel track is the rapid
6:02
development of Blue Origin. The Blue Origin is already going
6:05
down the line with Blue Origin. New Glen 3.
6:10
New Glen 2 should be coming out pretty soon.
6:14
It's been hot fired. It looks like it could be ready
6:16
to go. What we don't know is if we're
6:20
on it or not. And so that flight is supposed
6:25
to take the Escapade project or Escapade thing to Mars.
6:30
As some astute DDRS have figured out, it's actually not really an
6:34
optimal launch window for that. And so it might actually be in
6:37
their benefit to swap Escapade out.
6:40
We don't know what they're going to do.
6:42
We also don't know if we can go rideshare with Escapade because
6:45
there were some emerging theories that we would be on New
6:47
Glenn 2, which would certainly make for a very dramatic second
6:52
launch. Then we just don't know.
6:54
But it is really good to see the capacity of New Glenn speeding
6:58
up. Having that rocket hit the
7:01
market is going to add a ton of capacity and we want it.
7:06
There's a lot of space mob stuff that wants to go up in the air.
7:11
The other capacity that looks still honestly pretty far away
7:14
to me, but you know, looking better than it was is Starship.
7:21
So Starship had a test flight this week as well.
7:24
Dramatic is always the camera angles they have are really
7:30
almost out of a sci-fi video and they were able to get a cargo to
7:36
a suborbital altitude believe it was like 170 kilometers.
7:41
They were able to use the Pez dispenser, which is interesting
7:44
and then they were able to get the rocket back to Earth
7:47
whereupon it dramatically exploded.
7:51
So I don't really know the definition of success, but to be
7:56
able to get real weight up to a suborbital destination, release
8:03
it, and basically get stuff back to Earth is certainly a step in
8:07
the right direction versus the prior launches that had really
8:10
everything explode all over the place.
8:13
And so I think you got to just take progress where we can get
8:16
it. And it's funny when you think
8:19
about star alone. I was actually kind of dreading
8:23
people being idiots of going Oh no Starlink Starship was
8:27
successful we should sell ASTS. When I remind myself that
8:32
previously the the FUD would be all the space mobs.
8:37
Entire model depends on Starling or Starship being available.
8:41
It's like what is it going to be guys?
8:43
That our entire model depends on Starship being in existence to
8:47
drive down launch costs. Well, that was never true
8:51
explicitly from the beginning, ASTS has designed and budgeted
8:55
its satellites for existing launch vehicles and to the
9:00
extent price has come down that is just found value.
9:04
Then let's talk about what happens if Starship is
9:06
successful vis A vis the vis A vis the V3 satellites.
9:12
So the V3 satellite has an enormous amount of capacity and
9:16
it's going to be great for Starlink.
9:17
And having never seen true Starlink financials, it's
9:22
unclear how much that's needed because we don't really know.
9:25
When you look at the churn, when you look at the cost of the
9:28
terminals, when you look at the overall CapEx, you know that you
9:31
have a lot of revenue growth, growth at Star Link.
9:34
What you don't really know is how attractive those cash flows
9:37
are. I'm inclined to believe that
9:40
they're pretty good, in which case then V3 would make it all
9:44
better. But we don't really know if Star
9:49
Link was in a way a business that required an inflection.
9:55
I don't know that the bare case would be that the V3 is going to
10:00
allow them to have a viable DDC product.
10:03
And I just don't think that that is really a relevant point
10:08
because I don't think Starlink has the business model to pull
10:11
it off even if they have the tech.
10:13
But that's why I personally think that Starship being
10:16
successful is simply a net positive because it's majorly
10:21
disruptive to launch. We are short launch, make no
10:24
mistake. We want Rocket Lab to be
10:27
successful with their rockets. We want new land to be
10:29
successful. We want SpaceX to be successful
10:33
because that is going to commoditize the launch market.
10:36
And we have a lot of weight over many years that we need to put
10:39
in orbit to the more capacity, the better once we're up there
10:45
to kind of extend on the FCC approval.
10:49
Just want to explore an interesting tweet by Catsy,
10:53
which we've had some clues about for quite some time about the
10:58
impact of Firstnet on getting commercial service links.
11:03
So this is interesting as as to whether Catsy is right about not
11:07
necessarily a backdoor, but a deliberate approval strategy
11:11
where Firstnet, which is federal spectrum that's coordinated with
11:18
the FCC by the ITU. We've already filed all of our
11:23
work for the FCC is for the first net spectrum.
11:27
So we know that that's on the docket.
11:29
They've included it in all of the SCS rules.
11:34
It does give you 1 continuous swath of spectrum around the
11:39
country, and by law AT&T can use any free first night capacity
11:46
commercially. That was always the bet.
11:49
And so Catsy has a theory that full commercial approval can
11:57
drop at any time. And so the comment period ended
12:00
August 5th. SpaceX has been spamming it as
12:04
usual. But to be interesting, not
12:07
really necessary to own the stock, it is necessary to
12:10
ultimately get commercial approval for the service links
12:12
to be clear. But this first net angle could
12:15
really come out of left field and give us a service link
12:19
surprise faster than perhaps some of us are expecting.
12:23
But again, I think it's a moot point because what the market
12:26
really wants to see is the production of Block 2 on a
12:32
timely basis with an emerging visibility into the launch
12:37
vehicles are going to be using successful launch of those
12:40
satellites where they are able to take command and fly them.
12:45
And then I think a reasonable person of which all of us are,
12:49
will realize that the FCC will approve the SCS commercial
12:53
links, which is why they had the legislation in the first class.
12:57
So that really shouldn't be a bridge too far.
13:00
Speaking of people who are crossing that bridge, AT&T is
13:05
ramping up or something, and so many of us are to see AT&T reach
13:09
out to some of us asking for our contact details.
13:13
And I haven't gotten a package yet.
13:16
I've been excitedly checking my door every 10 minutes waiting to
13:22
see what AT&T is going to send us.
13:26
My imagine runs wild. I have a theory that they're
13:29
going to give me some like waffle oven or something, or
13:34
maybe a customized syrup. I don't know.
13:40
And maybe we should start a poll on what we think the AT&T swag
13:42
is going to be. But I hope it's awesome because
13:45
if they're smart and they are, it will be awesome.
13:47
And then we're all just going to explode it all over the Internet
13:50
and they're going to get a ton of free media exposure.
13:53
But it shows you that something is coming.
13:55
It also, when you think about it, is a direct extension as to
13:59
why Verizon will be getting their act together to the extent
14:04
that they're not. But the fact that Verizon has
14:07
been on TV saying we have a deal with ASD Space Mobile, the fact
14:11
that they filed the paperwork for the lease tells me that
14:15
there's really no big deal and it's all just on its way.
14:22
But when you think about it, there's just no way Verizon is
14:28
going to hesitate on this. The idea that AT&T is going to
14:32
be coming out in advertisements saying full guaranteed 100%
14:37
coverage all over the time with a bunch of media that shows
14:41
people really probably on a positive end of like being able
14:45
to share those moments to be able to send a picture to
14:49
grandma and those sorts of things is probably how you want
14:52
to lead. I don't think fear based
14:53
marketing is best, but I'll leave that to people like Tut
14:56
who are marketers because the inverse, it's showing people in
14:59
broken down cars or like stuck on a mountain and things like
15:02
that and delivering a very simple message of use AT&T and
15:05
you will not die, use AT&T. So if you're walking on a dark
15:10
St. and feel uncomfortable, you know your phone will work.
15:13
Guess which audience that message will resonate with?
15:17
Women. It's not hard.
15:21
Women really respond well to safety, as they should because
15:26
they're smart. And that's why women live longer
15:28
than men. And so this is not a hard thing
15:31
to sell to people because women will understand that 100%
15:35
network coverage is better than playing cell phone roulette like
15:39
I just did trying to do my spaces.
15:41
Now, some would say that this was a life threatening event I
15:46
just went through of not being able to do my spaces because
15:48
how, how would I go on? And, you know, I would have just
15:52
instead, I'd be hitting Space Mobile to deliver this Opera Pro
15:57
via satellite. But there's just no way into the
16:00
holiday season, you know, highly competitive cell phone market
16:05
that Verizon is going to be known as the carrier that will
16:08
kill you. That's just not a winning
16:11
proposition. And both these guys are going to
16:13
be eager to stick a Shank in the back of T-Mobile, who, you know,
16:18
idiotically partnered with with Starling to try to get some
16:22
Pixie dust. But they're being shut down by
16:24
Deutsche Telekom, their main owner anyway.
16:27
So let's let's see the AT&T ramp.
16:29
But I think you can safely assume as AT&T is, you know,
16:32
positioning to start marketing this, you can assume a lot of
16:37
things are about to happen, one of which is Verizon VA because
16:40
there's just again, there's no chance Verizon is going to let
16:43
AT&T jump out of that's just flies in the face of logic.
16:48
And it also implies AT&T sees what the company has already
16:52
told us, which is the production is ramping up and we're going to
16:55
have 20 satellites up in the air in in the blink of an eye, which
16:58
makes this real. So you can start to build
17:00
expectations for consumers within the sort of horizon
17:05
people expect things to be delivered.
17:06
This is not AT&T's FSD of oh, buy my product in full self
17:12
driving will occur in your grandchildren's, you know,
17:17
cryogenically extended lifespan. This is going to be buy our
17:20
phone, use us as your MNL and you'll have space mobile within
17:25
the next months. That's I think what they're
17:28
lining up to do. So when we think about the
17:31
deliverability of the service we had yet another very exciting
17:34
thing happened Legato. And so legato for quick
17:39
background is S TS very elegant and well structured deal to get
17:47
45 megahertz of what they call beachfront spectrum.
17:52
So this is super high quality spectrum that's going to be
17:56
great for high data throughput and voice and things like that.
18:01
It's been held up forever in the regulatory morass of the FCC,
18:07
fighting with the DoD, fighting with really everyone.
18:13
And ASTS was able to effectively consummate alchemy by taking
18:20
spectrum that was and is regulated currently and approved
18:25
as multi use satellite spectrum, but then being able to use it as
18:31
terrestrial spectrum. No one else has been able to do
18:34
that before. Previously they've tried to use
18:36
it under these ATC, which is like ancillary terrestrial
18:40
control. I forget what ATC stands for,
18:42
but it's basically hang towers and use this MSS spectrum
18:47
literally on the ground as terrestrial spectrum and that
18:49
created interference issues and then the DoD stepped up and the
18:52
DoD is using this spectrum for defense purposes and and it was
18:56
causing problems. We don't know exactly the
18:59
problems with the DoD, but presumably either related to
19:02
what it must have related to interference.
19:04
That's really the simple answer is the best answer.
19:07
So we had this incredible deal where we're paying 500 and $520
19:12
million upfront plus roughly $80 million a year as a lease
19:17
payment to control 45 megahertz of spectrum in North America.
19:22
Now this would normally be worth billions.
19:26
AT&T did a deal this week which we'll talk about to get
19:30
Echostar's spectrum, which I believe it was 50 megahertz of
19:37
spectrum, although I don't have that number of top my head.
19:39
And they paid $23 billion for that spectrum.
19:45
We're paying a song because we're the only people that can
19:52
use it in this way. Very valuable angle.
19:55
Well, Inmarsat ultimately owns the spectrum.
19:58
They had agreed to lease it to Legato to coordinate it and
20:03
basically allow that spectrum to be useful.
20:06
And then Legato hit the wall. And so then now we're stepping
20:09
in to lease that spectrum from Legato with monies then remitted
20:13
ultimately to Inmarsat. So think of a sublease effect.
20:17
So now Inmarsat is a cranky bunch.
20:21
And so along the way the bankruptcy, there's a couple of
20:25
issues, one of which is Inmersat wanted their money right away.
20:27
So this $520 million they wanted upfront fine, they figured out a
20:31
way to do it and then they threw in from the August surprise
20:35
saying, well, not only that, but we actually want to effectively
20:40
write in a non compete clause into this lease.
20:43
So we want to not basically, but we do want to prohibit AST from
20:50
operating in the L band on a global basis.
20:57
We want a contractual non compete.
21:00
Well this gets really interesting really quickly.
21:03
So for starters, ASTS said no. He said it's in unreasonable for
21:08
a global constellation to agree to a non compete.
21:12
Because that goes exactly to what I've said in many many
21:15
weeks in a row forever about the value of a global high economies
21:20
of scale multiclient system. You would not start to hive off
21:25
geographies. That is literally being pretty
21:28
dumb. The reason you're going to make
21:32
a lot of money as a monopoly type company is because of this
21:36
exact economies of scale and multiclient business model.
21:41
So you wouldn't write it out. So we went through all the
21:45
documents. They didn't give the ultimate
21:47
court. It's called the coordination
21:48
agreement. Some of this is all, a lot of
21:50
it's all redacted. But in the adversary proceeding,
21:53
which is just a fancy way of saying a side fight.
21:56
So there's a main fight and then kind of think of like outside
21:59
the bar in the back alley, there's like an extra little
22:01
fight. So in this docket for the extra
22:04
little fight, there was a lot of interesting stuff that showed
22:07
the red lines and a lot more context about this dispute.
22:11
What it shows very clearly is the ambitions of ASDF space
22:16
model. So a big thing kind of on a
22:19
sidetrack. So we're going from a side fight
22:20
to a sidetrack. The sidetrack is I'm always
22:24
looking to make sure that there's a big vision by a
22:26
management team. If I'm going to have a position
22:28
like this, I want to make sure that whether I'm around for this
22:31
thing to be X dollars per share conservative, let's say a
22:35
billion dollars per share. I while I might not write it out
22:39
for that, I want to make sure that that can verbate delta
22:42
value is there so that someone else would be as excited to buy
22:45
this stock from the F500 as I'm as excited to buy it today.
22:49
At 50, you don't really want to ever.
22:52
I don't think you want to invest ever knowing that there's a bag
22:54
holder. You want to make sure that
22:56
there's a big opportunity. You want to understand the true
23:00
thinking of management, how strategic they are, how big
23:03
they're thinking. So this docket was revealing
23:07
because Inmarsat even said ASTS is a very ambitious company.
23:12
They see it from a mile away that ASTS Space Mobile is coming
23:17
for their spectrum. We have some proof points of
23:19
this just from a couple weeks ago where we did this very small
23:22
$60 million deal to buy ITU coordination rights.
23:27
That's showing the hand of AST Space Mobile.
23:30
They're doing little things and big things, the little things
23:34
set up or big things down the line where you can start to
23:38
actually just start taking or applying or using spectrum.
23:41
If someone's not using it fully, which Inmarsat would not be
23:45
using it fully as they operate these narrow band systems for
23:48
ships. We can waltz in there and have
23:51
third in priority as as is the case for us with that IT right
23:55
and then start to use it. Inmarsat sees this from a mile
24:00
away, and they very clearly see the threat we pose to their
24:04
business. And so they were trying to stop.
24:07
So the judge did a reasonable thing.
24:09
A good judge should really do the minimum, in my view that,
24:15
you know, I think is a political divide where people usually
24:18
accuse activist judges of legislating from the bench and
24:21
maybe ruling in a way that is reflective of how they think the
24:26
world ought to be, where more conservative judges rule really
24:30
to preserve freedom and rights and otherwise let things get
24:34
decided later so that you're just reserving judgement.
24:38
And I, I kind of like the the latter approach better see how
24:43
the cards shake out. And so the judge said, let's get
24:47
these birds up in the air. Let's get North America L band
24:51
lit up. If you guys have a fight on
24:54
international things later, then you sue each other later, but
25:00
you're not in a fight right now, you're not tripping over each
25:03
other on international spectrum right now.
25:06
So let's not settle it. And it's not in my purview to
25:10
settle it. So they agreed to cut and paste
25:13
the mediation language that they had done, which is binding
25:17
mediation language. They had agreed to put that
25:18
language in the final documentation, which is going to
25:21
be the basis of getting this plan confirmed, which should
25:25
hopefully happen this month. And then rest assured, when ASCs
25:29
Space Mobile down the line moves to operate in the L band
25:33
internationally in MERSAT will sue them and we'll just figure
25:39
it out later. But when you think about it, at
25:41
that point in time, the value that will have been created will
25:45
cause this lawsuit to just be an issue of how much more value
25:49
will we be creating in addition to the, you know, X incredible
25:54
outcome that we already created. So very exciting to see this
25:58
without a bankruptcy move forward.
25:59
I do think the confirmation of this bankruptcy is going to be a
26:04
very, a very important event for the market, especially as people
26:09
are looking at what we'll get to next, which is this AT&T
26:12
spectrum deal. And you can you can see Echostar
26:14
really revalue. We'll get to that in a SEC.
26:17
You can see ViaSat revalue probably should have bought that
26:19
stock, honestly. I mean these, these spectrum
26:23
assets, the one is specifically these MSS spectrum assets I
26:26
think are likely to be revalued because the value that use is
26:32
going higher because of ASDS space mobile.
26:36
It begs the question of do you buy the NAV base play of a
26:39
revaluation spectrum or do you buy the actual company that can
26:45
drive the value spectrum? And I think the latter is
26:49
smarter. It just goes to the saying cats
26:52
he has his spectrum will will find its way to the most
26:55
efficient system. And as we saw with what happened
26:59
Echostar, squatting on spectrum is a dangerous game.
27:02
Regulators aren't particularly humored by it, and there's lots
27:06
of mechanisms to force that spectrum into your hands if you
27:10
can actually use it. So I'd want to be aligned with
27:12
the companies that can use and monetize the spectrum, not squat
27:16
them. Personal view, sure, they're
27:20
going to be a vibrant debate. So next let's get to spectrum.
27:23
We had AT&T do a blockbuster deal.
27:25
They bought again $23 billion of spectrum.
27:29
It was in the low band 600 megahertz swath.
27:34
And then they bought some mid band spectrum.
27:37
So the low band stuff is is particularly interesting.
27:40
When I was talking to friends who are experts on this stuff,
27:43
they made the point that low band is what is the most scarce
27:48
spectrum. And what it also helps is really
27:50
the uplink. And so to have a spectrum that
27:53
can penetrate in buildings and provide a lot more capacity to
27:56
uplink as the use for really, you know, spectrum just
28:00
continues to climb. The mid band is interesting too.
28:03
It adds capacity for high data broadband, but there is just
28:08
more mid band that the government is going to be
28:10
freeing up in subsequent auctions.
28:11
So it's inherently not quite as scarce.
28:13
Still very valuable. This spectrum just gives AT&T
28:18
more stuff to utilize with Space Mobile.
28:21
And importantly, now that AT&T's, you know, about to do,
28:25
you know, like $23 billion cash deal to close sometime in 2026,
28:30
they're going to be under pressure to light it up.
28:33
And so lighting up requires new towers or modifications to
28:38
existing towers, which takes time and costs money.
28:41
And so a quick way to fill in the the dead spots for the
28:45
spectrum. So it might not be a dead spot
28:47
per say where there's no coverage, but dead spot for the
28:49
spectrum could and likely will be utilizing AST Space Mobile,
28:54
which really highlights the incredible value of this beyond
28:58
quote UN quote dead spots in a simplistic way of thinking about
29:01
it, but also just the tower vacuum and also the CapEx
29:05
reinvestment cycles these M and OS pursue.
29:08
And I think could be a real early taste for M and OS of
29:12
maybe we don't need the tower at all.
29:14
Maybe in a lot of these areas, we're just going to use AST
29:18
Space Mobile to light up the spectrum and use it versus go
29:22
through the CapEx event of hanging up a new tower.
29:27
Interesting food or thought and this let me see if there's,
29:33
there's a lot of tweets included for this that people could study
29:36
it for themselves. And I think for me it will be an
29:38
evolving, evolving learning process to get the full
29:45
takeaways from this. I actually bought AT&T stock
29:47
last week too, because what you want, the parallel I saw with
29:51
AT&T is just them doing what IBM did, which is like just actually
29:56
focus and what being stupid. And so AT&T is focusing and not
30:01
being stupid and spectrum is valuable asset.
30:05
And so, you know, I made the joke of these companies being
30:08
spectrum treasury companies low AT and TS, you know, just just
30:12
did the meme. And I like that thesis.
30:14
They're being smart. They're investing in the thing
30:16
they're actually good at and the cheap stock.
30:20
And so I thought this thing could, you know, revalue and
30:22
with interest rates coming down, these dividend stocks that are 6
30:28
or 7% could, could do pretty well.
30:30
So we'll see. I mean, it's a small position
30:32
for me, but just thought I'd highlight that and then people
30:36
can laugh at me later when it's like coup bot AT&T lost money on
30:40
his M&O stock. But there's a lot of cool
30:43
details here that I included. I'm just skimming through them
30:46
all. And then I included the
30:48
conference call, which is the last link there.
30:50
And I suggest people listen to that.
30:52
It was pretty interesting. So Charlie, Charlie's angels now
30:59
want to be ADAD company. How cute is that?
31:05
And so looks like they want to get in on the party like they
31:08
usually do. They see a good idea being done
31:10
and then he goes, why no? Why don't I just take maximum
31:13
financial risk and do something subscale without a business plan
31:18
and pray? Well, it didn't work out that
31:22
great for Charlie on his spectrum squatting.
31:23
He looks to lived another day. But now the whole theory is well
31:30
this guy's going to come dominate the D to D market as a
31:34
late Comer, using a commoditized prime contractor to put stuff in
31:40
the air with 0 customers and entering the market with the
31:45
utter content and hatred of all possible partners.
31:50
So therefore, of course he will win, right?
31:52
And so the issue is this AWS 3 and 4 spectrum that he has, this
31:58
S band spectrum, good for him. Spectrum is a good place to
32:02
start, but he's got to build satellites.
32:06
And so I was doing a little bit of work just studying the
32:11
abilities of MDA, which is the Canadian prime that he's using.
32:15
The MDA is a real company and the platform called Aurora,
32:19
which is their generic communication satellite platform
32:23
that they are going to be using for Charlie's system.
32:28
So all ironies aside, this is literally what's gone wrong for
32:33
every satellite constellation ever, which is have an idea and
32:40
then use a prime to go try to build it.
32:43
So why is that problematic? Well, you don't have control and
32:46
so think about what's going to happen here.
32:49
MDNA wants to leverage its R&D and its, you know, fixed
32:54
investment in its Aurora platform.
32:56
It doesn't want to be doing bespoke adaptations of this, for
33:00
example, like putting on a payload module, the tail we call
33:05
it the Stingray to adapt to. Perhaps adding L band for DoD
33:08
purposes for Golden Dome, things like that would be very
33:11
difficult to do with a prime because they're not really set
33:16
up or they are set up for change orders.
33:18
But the problem is then they'll just scalp you.
33:21
The other issue is you just don't really have the same
33:23
ownership with a third party prime relying on your or you
33:30
relying on 3rd party prime versus having internal control.
33:35
Nothing is better when you outsource the key thing, which
33:43
is your constellation. Just kind of obvious.
33:48
So this is what Charlie has done.
33:50
He had the same fuse lit now of he has operationalized the
33:54
spectrum. Otherwise the FCC will take it.
33:56
He's going to have this dog and pony show about it.
34:00
I think the view is that he probably is going to try to sell
34:02
the spectrum, but he's crazy. And so you really don't know.
34:06
And maybe he pulls off a trick by getting Apple as a partner.
34:11
And so that seems like there's certainly a non zero chance that
34:14
Apple might ditch or compliment their global store deal and pull
34:18
in Charlie and and use his spectrum that that could make
34:23
sense. A little bit of a precarious
34:25
move for Apple because it starts to look like they're maybe
34:29
vertically integrating as an MNL.
34:31
We'll see. But worth worth watching.
34:34
I think my general instinct is this spectrum existed.
34:39
It was either going to get out of the hands of SpaceX or stay
34:44
with Charlie, maybe get sold to an MNL, but I think too hard.
34:48
And so keeping it with Charlie is what I would imagine is a
34:52
weaker competitor is probably the better outcome for ASD Space
34:55
Mobile. But when I zoom out, even if
34:58
SpaceX were to have bought it, So what?
35:02
They still don't have the customers.
35:03
They still have a lot of issues. Connectivity wasn't really what
35:07
was holding them back. The spectrum wasn't really
35:10
holding them back in, in my view.
35:14
And what I also heard in the market, I don't know if this is
35:16
true, is that Elon didn't even bid.
35:20
And the reason why is because Trump wouldn't have let it go
35:23
through. And that's interesting.
35:26
If Elon basically knows he can't really ask for advantages or
35:32
approvals anymore. And I don't, again, I don't know
35:34
if that's true. I was asking around to see if
35:35
anyone else could confirm that. So if anyone has further
35:38
information on that, just DM me. I'll obviously respect anyone's
35:43
desire to remain anonymous. So, but those are the types of
35:47
things I'm thinking about next. We have T-Mobile building
35:52
expectations for their own service.
35:56
But then I heard they also pulled the ads.
35:58
So again, if anyone has a clarification on what T-Mobile
36:00
is doing, we'd love to know. But T-Mobile is building
36:03
expectations for a service that's not good only to be
36:06
followed very quickly by AT&T. And so, you know, what are they
36:12
doing here? It's going to be interesting to
36:16
see. But meanwhile, it just goes back
36:20
to the importance of spectrum in the FCC.
36:24
So next we have an article that just says is burning car of the
36:27
most powerful men really in Washington?
36:30
And I've certainly had my eyes open to the evolving power of he
36:36
who controls the spectrum. Now, this article is also about
36:39
how Brendan Carr can shut down all the news networks and things
36:41
like that. So that is a big part of the
36:43
article. But to a man or the hammer, the
36:45
world looks like spectrum. And what we've seen as we've
36:49
studied Golden Dome more is that our understanding, the
36:54
collective, our understanding of how spectrum is going to be used
36:56
for defense and national security issues is rapidly
37:00
evolving and not static. And we're right there of exactly
37:06
where the market is going. And we're the one company that
37:10
is positioned to deliver on that, that has not yet pissed
37:14
off the only man who can stop it, which is Donald Trump.
37:19
And so we're in a great position of having not angered anyone by
37:23
creating a third political party or compromising important
37:27
legislation. We have remained quiet,
37:30
predictable, reliable, apparently very accommodative to
37:34
the needs of the DoD and made a lot of friends for whom we are
37:39
going to provide a great service.
37:40
And that's a nice place to be. Another nice place to be is
37:47
Firstnet. So we already talked about
37:49
Firstnet, but just putting it back here again, there's an
37:53
urgent comms article that just says that AT&T and Space Mobile
37:58
recently received regulatory approval for the Firstnet
38:01
testing. So it just goes to again, this
38:03
back door that Catsy is thinking might apply to us for a broad
38:09
commercial service length approval, which would be
38:11
exciting. And then we also just have to
38:14
take a step back. And I think this this last tweet
38:17
is kind of interesting thing to think about where the just the
38:22
imaginations that are released with space.
38:24
And you see these videos that SpaceX puts out and it seems
38:28
like the world stops to watch this stuff and it's just so
38:32
cool. And I think this evolving
38:36
recognition that the space industry, the space opportunity
38:42
is more than a rich boys club sort of pastime is a theme that
38:47
will certainly extend into 2026 and beyond.
38:52
And I've just had a lot of humility about riding these
38:56
themes because it's, and I think I've said this before, but
38:59
sometimes you can identify the tip of the spear, but then you
39:04
just don't quite realize that the width and the length of the
39:08
wood behind the sphere is a freight train, not a straw.
39:14
And so look at recent examples like AI, recent question marks
39:19
like quantum, probably going to be a big trend, but don't know
39:23
things like SAS, you know, things like alternative energy.
39:28
These things were big movements like pigs being forced through
39:34
pythons. And if something is easy to
39:38
capture the imagination and then subsequently has incredible
39:42
substance and incredible business models, there's really
39:45
room for dramatic market cap responses.
39:50
And that's what's going to be the most exciting thing to look
39:53
at over the next year when we're really in the Q Max phase of our
39:59
commercial development. It's going to be really
40:02
interesting to see if we don't have the Palantir effect because
40:06
I really think we might. So the last thing to end on.
40:09
Is just a reminder that our friend Gavin had an incredible
40:13
tragedy befall him and you know it's easy to get a lot of an
40:19
emotional response sort of right when you learn about it.
40:22
But the the journey Gavin is is going through certainly doesn't
40:26
end on a one week fundraiser. He has a long journey ahead of
40:31
him and just want to call out, you know, his challenges he has
40:37
ahead of him. And I know he really appreciates
40:39
all the support, but just, you know, I'll include this link for
40:41
a bit just so anyone that hasn't or would like to make a
40:46
contribution to some of the needs he has of getting
40:50
accessible home bill and some of the transitions that he's going
40:52
to have to make as he recovers from his injury.
40:56
I'm sure he'd appreciate any support and just recognizing he
41:00
has a long journey ahead and let's make sure we don't we
41:03
don't forget him. Sorry again about the technical
41:06
difficulties. I hope next week is better and
41:11
I'm not quite sure went wrong, but maybe the answer is that I
41:13
do this off of my laptop now on that seems to be to the
41:16
conclusion. So thank you everyone for
41:18
joining. I hope everyone had a wonderful
41:20
Labor Day and we will see what the next week brings.
41:25
And I hope if Scott can channel my thinking through telepathy,
41:30
he will put out PR tomorrow morning saying we got FCC
41:34
approval and the future is bright.
41:37
Something to that effect. Thanks everyone.
41:40
I'll leave it running for a couple minutes so that those on
41:43
replay aren't going crazy and have a great night.
41:46
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile Podcast.
41:50
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To catch all the. Latest news about AST Space
42:02
Mobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
42:05
next time. We're doing something very, very
42:11
big and I think with this technology we can really affect
42:14
billion lives. AFT Space Mobile is the only
42:17
company that has full technology to deliver several mobile
42:21
connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone.
42:26
People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless,
42:29
regardless of where you are. We don't want the music even to
42:32
know that it's connected by satellite.
42:35
Our role is to bring. This into.
42:37
Reality, always in partnership with the enemy.
42:39
Listen. Waffles.