Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Spectrum Alchemy: Decoding AST SpaceMobile's 10x Performance Patent

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Anpanman - Spectrum Alchemy: Decoding AST SpaceMobile's 10x Performance Patent · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

• 0:06
  This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and we.
• 0:11
  Just basically from the phone and be seamless regardless of
• 0:14
  where you are. We don't want the user even to
• 0:16
  know that it's connected by satellite, Satellite, listen,
• 0:21
  the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
• 0:27
  Everyone, thanks for joining. I figured I'd fire up a space
• 0:30
  and talk about this patent that was filed over last week, which
• 0:36
  revealed quite a bit on a bell and the company's plans to
• 0:41
  optimize spectrum. And, you know, I'll first say
• 0:44
  that I'm not an RF expert. And a lot of this was, you know,
• 0:49
  due to being informed by various, you know, AI models.
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  But, you know, I think probably Katzy is better equipped to
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  actually go through the nitty gritty.
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  But I think it's important at a high level, which is what I'm
• 1:02
  going to talk about, to understand what this means.
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  And so, yeah, if for those that didn't see AST filed this
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  patent, which I believe was filed last year, but then it was
• 1:13
  finally published this year. I don't know if that's due to
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  confidentially confidentiality reasons, but this patent is
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  really big, right? Because I think we've heard a
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  bell for the first time in the fourth quarter earnings call
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  talk about how through various techniques they would be able to
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  get near term 3X the performance.
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  And that's three X presumably off of what they were talking
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  before, which is 120 megahertz megabits per second speeds,
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  which I think the underlying assumption is 40 megahertz of
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  spectrum. So that's about 3 bits per Hertz
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  of efficiency. And just give people a sense for
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  how that compares to terrestrial systems.
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  I think terrestrial towers are somewhere around 7:00 to 9:00
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  bits per Hertz in terms of efficiency and, and traditional
• 2:02
  satellite performance typically is around 1:00 to 2:00 bits per
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  Hertz. And the reason why that is, is
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  that you get terrestrial systems, you know, you've got
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  buildings, trees, all these different things.
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  And so there's various techniques.
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  For example, terrestrial systems actually use dual, dual
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  polarization, but they do it in a physical sense, like they have
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  two antennas at 45° angles and one's putting out, I guess, you
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  know, vertical waves or vertical frequency and the other one's
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  doing horizontal. Whereas what AST is doing with
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  its very large aperture, which by the way, you can't do this
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  stuff unless you have a very, very large phased array.
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  But what AST is doing is doing that dynamically.
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  So it is able to transmit essentially 2 channels on the
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  same frequency to your phone. And the reason why that's
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  important is that your phone, when you're walking around, it
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  can be oriented in different ways.
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  And so the, the, the direction of the antenna changes.
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  So, but for the large phased array, by doing this on a, for
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  terrestrial systems, they do it constantly for each of the
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  antennas, whereas what ASC is doing, they're going to be
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  sending you signals in a, in a burst manner in both directions,
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  right? And so by doing this, they're
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  effectively able to double the highway lanes that they're able
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  to communicate to the phone, which is pretty extraordinary.
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  It's something that Abell talked about back in 2017, 2018 in one
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  of the articles, he talked about MIMO and other optimization
• 3:37
  techniques. But now we're actually seeing
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  these things come out. And so it's it's pretty damn
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  impressive. I think with this polarization,
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  transparent switching and better scheduling, I think that's where
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  you're able to make better use of the satellite aperture and
• 3:53
  spectrum to, you know, unmodified phones.
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  And so that's probably where the 3X claim comes from.
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  And then Whatabelle talked about with the AST 5000 chip and
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  utilizing AI and I'm reading this directly from this this
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  chatbot, but the 10X longer, longer term claim is probably
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  something related to AI allowing you to dynamically optimize
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  polarization beams, time slash frequency resources, power, MCS
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  and interference across constellation.
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  And then with the same megahertz, the, the satellites
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  can carry much more traffic, far more traffic, right.
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  And so I think this is where I remember in one of the
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  conversations talking to the company, they were talking about
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  how, for example, 3 GPP is is inefficient and there's various
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  ways you can optimize it to extract more performance.
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  And so yeah, that's really exciting.
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  I think just looking at, you know, the way to stack this
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  performance, at least this is how AI thinks about it.
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  You know, polar polarization mismatch recovery that could be
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  at 1.5 to three times, you know, improvement, better MCS and
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  higher signal noise ratio 1.5 to three times better user grouping
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  and scheduling, 1.2 to two times more aggressive frequency reused
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  2 to 4 times better beam forming in power optimization, 1.2 to
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  two time then ASIC software and ran maturity that can be 1.5 to
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  three times efficiency. So there's a lot to unpack here
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  in terms of unpack meaning improvements over time, right?
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  And so I think it's important for in any of these programs
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  where, for example, you know, let's let's take SpaceX and
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  Falcon 9 when it first launched, you know, they had the first
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  iteration of engines and you know, that things were not fully
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  optimized, but over time, that vehicle became way cheaper and
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  had a higher performance as they made incremental improvements.
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  And so with AST, we're already seeing that happen where the
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  company, you know, Bell talked about this at Bluebird 7 launch
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  in the morning, he for the first time disclosed that they were
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  able to get over 160 megabits per second performance.
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  And so that's a big improvement over 120.
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  And so I think you're going to see these incremental step
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  functions. And why this is important is
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  that as Katzie has discussed in the past, spectrum will always
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  find its way to the most efficient use, right?
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  And so where a lot of a decent amount of spectrum, well, first
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  of all, the, the, the fallow spectrum that's not lit up in
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  dead zones, that's going to find its most efficient, you know,
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  find its way to the most efficient use, which is AST
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  space mobile Bluebirds. And perhaps over time you'll see
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  AT&T and Verizon actually dedicate low band spectrum fully
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  to to satellite service or they, you know, they might allocate
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  more unused spectrum in these bed zones to the service, right.
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  So after they see that it's working and, and you know,
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  consumers are enjoying the experience, might say, OK, well,
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  let's free up more 800 and 700 megahertz in those dead, dead
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  zone areas to AST. Why not, right?
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  We're going to, we're going to leverage that spectrum and, and
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  put it to, to use because otherwise it's not being used.
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  But then, you know, the next logical set would be perhaps we
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  should just free up an entire band globally, widen that out,
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  maybe 5 by 510 by or not globally, sorry, within the
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  region. So 5 by 510 by 10 and that could
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  serve as an additional capacity layer, right?
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  And so that could be in the cards too for low band spectrum.
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  However, moving over to mid band spectrum for Legato, this makes
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  that spectrum way more valuable, which is obviously the spectrum
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  that the company owns, right it for the next 80 years.
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  And so if they're able to extract additional performance
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  out of that spectrum, how much is it worth?
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  Like if you were valuing it at 15 to $20 billion today?
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  And that's value, meaning, you know, it's, it's, it's going to
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  be properly deployed, which by the way, like we talked about
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  this idea of spectrum alchemy. For the longest time that L band
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  spectrum was contested because GPS, the military, they did not
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  want it used for terrestrial purposes, meaning back in the
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  daylight squared was going to put up a bunch of terrestrial
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  towers, run it at pretty high power and then provide fixed
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  wireless service. That was the original intent.
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  So they were going to some under what Clearwire.
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  Clearwire was trying to do in the 2.4 or sorry, two dots yeah
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  2.42 dot six gigahertz spectrum which Clearwire you know that
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  was a big high cap X project that Intel and a bunch of other
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  tech companies backed because they were going to change
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  wireless Internet and provide fixed wireless to your home.
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  That failed and then ultimately it was bought by Sprint and then
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  Sprint was rolled into T-Mobile. But light squirt had a similar
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  vision right. Over many years they tried to
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  rule out terrestrial service and they got a massive push back
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  from the GPS alliance Wi-Fi, you know Department of Defense.
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  But then they they ultimately did get FCC approval for
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  terrestrial use. However, they just couldn't get
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  there in terms of funding and, and you know, getting a proper
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  business plan in place, but that that was also that potential,
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  you know, interference concern was always there and was a big,
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  a big shadow over the project. Whereas now under AST's control,
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  given that we have these large aperture satellites that can,
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  you know, beam down the very specific, you know, service
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  without interfering in adjacent spectrum, we've unlocked the
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  value of this spectrum and we're using for its original intent,
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  which is from satellite to user device, not terrestrial towers
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  to user devices, right. And so we've, you know, it's
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  funny enough because like there's, there's detractors like
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  from Biosad and obviously Biosad after this deal happening
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  between Legato and AST and Biosad agreeing, Hey, we'll help
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  you out. And then they, they realizing
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  strategic mistake they did, they made, you know, they've tried to
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  put a wrench into things and then they've got slapped down by
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  the judge. But but it's funny because
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  there's only one player that can actually utilize the spectrum
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  properly. It's AST.
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  It's not, it's not ViaSat, it's not Starlink, it's not any
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  number of players because they just don't have the technology
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  right. For example, you know, Katzie
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  pointed out astutely that Starlink uses circular
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  circularization, circular polarization, which is not the
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  same as what we're doing. And so they can't derive the
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  same efficiency benefits. But also, you know, they have
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  smaller phased arrays. They don't have the same
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  technology that we do. They're trying to get there for
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  B2, but they don't have the ability to put down very precise
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  cell beams. They don't have beam forming.
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  They don't have, you know, that's a regenerative
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  architecture. And so until they are able to
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  get to the next satellite, they're not going to have the
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  same mobile performance. On top of that, for Starlink to
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  truly work, they need a contiguous band of spectrum.
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  They can't actually put down specific cells like like we can,
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  right? And so that's why T-Mobile had
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  to give them an entire block of of PCSG block spectrum 5 by 5 in
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  order for the surface to work. And even then, as, as we've
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  heard from Starlink's the former head of growth, the project, the
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  product is shitty, right? And so you've got to wait for
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  the next generation and will they get there?
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  Who knows, right? But what was interesting in my
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  research over the weekend is that what we're doing
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  specifically is enabled by having a very massive phased
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  array. Because in order to efficiently
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  try to pull this off you, you actually need very, you need
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  many antenna elements in a large phased array in order to provide
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  this, this level of efficiency. And what we learned by the way,
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  over the weekend or sorry, not over the weekend, but at launch,
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  this wasn't one of my direct conversations, but it was a
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  conversation that someone else had sitting next to one of the
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  folks at AST Space Mobile. And I unfortunately in the bus
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  ride there bus ride back, I did not get to sit next to anyone
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  from AST, but I heard a number of Nuggets from people who did.
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  But I mean, no surprise like there there is a plan to even
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  make A to make a larger phased array.
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  So if you guys were recalled, the original plan was to do a
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  30m by 30m phased array. And then of course the block 1
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  Bluebirds were was it 88 by 8 meters and then this the block 2
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  Bluebirds are 15 by 15 meters. But eventually you probably
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  going to see that get to 20 to 25, right?
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  Because you gain performance and efficiency by putting a larger
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  phased array out there. And so while competitors are
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  trying to get to, you know, for Starling V2, they're trying to
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  go from 2.5 to 2.5 by 2.5 meters, which is the current V1.
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  They're going to try to get to 5 by 5 for our V2, whereas we're
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  at 15 by 15. And the, the party doesn't stop
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  there like we're, we're probably going to go to 20 by 20 or 25 by
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  25. And so the, the design of, you
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  know, block three, well, it's probably not going to be block
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  3. Block 3 will probably utilize
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  the same parameters in terms of size, but I'm sure block 4 is
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  going to be bigger and that that's, that's the plan.
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  Or perhaps there could be some designs where they start
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  grouping satellites where they actually, you know, orbit them
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  as a group and utilize a grouped phase array to do more
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  efficient, you know, beamforming and, and data transmit.
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  So, but yeah, this I, I think it's important to point this out
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  because like when thinking about spectrum and its use, you've got
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  a number of legacy players who say, hey, we're going to provide
• 14:23
  directed device service. We're going to go to our
• 14:26
  favorite prime contractor and do by purchase order, try to get a
• 14:31
  satellite consolation up, which it's fine.
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  Like you can put something up that is maybe narrow band, you
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  know, something IoT based. But in order to do full
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  broadband, you're going to have to innovate yourself, right?
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  And you have to bring that in house.
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  And so I think like I have, I have confidence in Starlink
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  eventually getting to something that's pretty decent, but that's
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  going to take time. And likewise for Amazon, who,
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  you know, they're just getting into the game and they're
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  leveraging. So for the next 4 years, they're
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  going to use Global Star's current constellation with 17
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  more, you know, replenish satellites.
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  And then they're eventually going to move on to MDA Space,
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  which has been building the Aurora satellite.
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  And you know, that they're trying to launch, I think fifty
• 15:18
  of those within the next few years.
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  And then eventually they're going to come out with their own
• 15:23
  satellite, right? And so maybe that's like
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  20302031, but but yeah, that will be their first iteration
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  and then we will have been on our, I don't know like 4th
• 15:35
  generation by then. And so I think at that point if,
• 15:40
  if AST is able to lock up a vast majority of the 50 M and OS it's
• 15:46
  working with and it's delivering service.
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  And as we've discussed in the past, our service is fully
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  integrated with the network core, which is, which is great
• 15:56
  in terms of M and OS being able to offer various, you know,
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  options of, of user level and service, which is great for
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  them. But also on flip side locks us
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  in, you know, makes us a, an integral part of the service
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  offering. So it's really hard to, I guess,
• 16:16
  RIP and replace. And so you have this like mutual
• 16:19
  dependence on one another. That's going to be a really
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  tough nut to crack, right. And so when thinking about this
• 16:27
  service level 2, it's like, OK, well, if Amazon is able to build
• 16:32
  a phase array that's, I don't know, 5 by 5.
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  And they, they take a cue from some of the things we're doing,
• 16:39
  which by the way, like if they want to fully upgrade that
• 16:41
  consolation, at some point, they're going to have to just
• 16:44
  turn off global star, the old, the old existing consolation and
• 16:49
  also Aurora. Because like, if you're going to
• 16:50
  start with a clean sheet, you're going to have to kind of throw
• 16:53
  everything out that was done before, right?
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  And so maybe they'll just deorbit all the satellites, but
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  that's going to take time and and there's going to be trial
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  and error just like we are seeing first hand in terms of
• 17:05
  production, which Amazon Leo, the the fixed wireless satellite
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  consolation. I mean that that was many years
• 17:10
  in the making. And now they're, they're, they
• 17:12
  have finally got through to a point where they're they're
• 17:15
  launching or they're, you know, getting up to production cadence
• 17:19
  to launch more regularly. And so they'll have to go
• 17:21
  through the same, you know, pain processes, right.
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  But obviously they've got experience in building
• 17:27
  satellites and that's going to help them to degree.
• 17:28
  But you can look at Starlink as a prime example of, you know, a
• 17:33
  provider that has a tremendous amount of experience building a
• 17:37
  fixed wireless system. You know, a system that is
• 17:40
  beaming down high speed data to fix dishes that are sit atop
• 17:45
  your house or, you know, maybe on top of your RV.
• 17:47
  That's a very different proposition than beaming down
• 17:50
  broadband to importantly for us, the unmodified phone.
• 17:54
  But in, in Starlink's case, a phone that is modified that
• 17:58
  requires certain type of chip in order to receive that service,
• 18:01
  right? Because there's there's some
• 18:02
  optimization techniques that they require with on the phone
• 18:05
  side in order to see the Starlink satellites and predict
• 18:09
  where they're going to be in order to provide better service,
• 18:13
  which again, is, is Starlink. Former employees have said is is
• 18:17
  just is at a shitty level right now.
• 18:19
  So, but you know, one of the important things about going
• 18:23
  back to this whole idea of, of implementing additional
• 18:27
  performance from the spectrum that you have is that that's
• 18:31
  going to give you an accelerating technology mode,
• 18:35
  right? Meaning if, if indeed, and, and
• 18:39
  this is what Starling said that it said, hey, we're going to try
• 18:41
  to target 150 megabits per second for V2, where will we be?
• 18:45
  Where will, yeah, where will we be at that time if we're able to
• 18:48
  get a 3X performance? And we have MIMO where there's
• 18:51
  multiple satellites that are serving the same cell.
• 18:55
  You know, previously eval talked about like 750 megabits per
• 18:57
  second. This is like many years ago.
• 18:59
  But you know, does that get to 1 Gigabit when you know, 1 gig or
• 19:02
  does it go to 1.5 gigs? And this is, you know, everyone
• 19:06
  in within a, a cell sharing the same performance.
• 19:10
  But but obviously, once you start getting to those numbers,
• 19:13
  then you can have a lot of simultaneous users.
• 19:15
  Now, obviously, like as most people know from mobile phones,
• 19:20
  it's not as if you're streaming something constantly on your
• 19:23
  phone, even when you're in urban environments or, you know, maybe
• 19:25
  you're watching a game or something.
• 19:27
  But even then, like that's not high definition.
• 19:30
  That's typically standard definition to your phone.
• 19:33
  But in areas where there's not as many people using it, you
• 19:37
  know, it's not as if someone's downloading a large application.
• 19:41
  You're typically using, you know, for browsing, uploading
• 19:45
  photos from time, downloading photos, looking at some videos,
• 19:47
  but you know, it's really to like stay connected with loved
• 19:51
  ones. And so just like your regular,
• 19:54
  you know, for, for cell phone usage.
• 19:57
  I think sometimes people have this idea that everybody's going
• 20:00
  to be watching Netflix at the same time.
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  But if you look at terrestrial towers, like you probably are
• 20:05
  serving, you know, hundreds or thousands of customers and at
• 20:09
  only at any given time, maybe a small fraction of those
• 20:11
  customers are actually accessing network because people are, for
• 20:15
  example, leveraging Wi-Fi, right?
• 20:16
  I mean like. When, when talking about usage
• 20:21
  for your own wireless service, you pay, I mean, I pay like $100
• 20:27
  a month for, for each my wife and, and my phone 'cause we, we
• 20:31
  have unlimited plans, but we probably only use them like 5 to
• 20:35
  10% of the time outside. Most of the time we're, we're
• 20:38
  connected to Wi-Fi. And so people are, you know,
• 20:42
  when, when thinking about pricing, it's like, and you
• 20:45
  know, you have pushback of people saying, well, this
• 20:47
  service, the pricing is too high.
• 20:49
  We actually already pay really high prices for what is
• 20:53
  essentially insurance, right, which is the, the time that
• 20:56
  you're out, they are not connected to Wi-Fi.
• 20:59
  You're paying a really huge premium to have that
• 21:01
  connectivity. And so what's what, what is an
• 21:04
  additional 5% on your bill or 10% of your bill to have 100%
• 21:08
  connectivity all the time. But going back to the original
• 21:12
  point, which, which is the fact that you're able to extract more
• 21:16
  performance per megahertz of spectrum, you know, go again
• 21:21
  like space, space applications, satellites typically get like
• 21:24
  one to two bits per Hertz. We're currently at 3 to 4 bits.
• 21:28
  The most efficient terrestrial systems are somewhere between
• 21:30
  7:00 to 9:00 Hertz, bits per Hertz.
• 21:33
  Yeah, if we start pushing that, then then you start getting into
• 21:36
  this realm of like offering almost if you have enough
• 21:40
  satellites up offering a comparable level of services
• 21:43
  terrestrial. And and that's, that becomes
• 21:47
  really interesting when you're looking at big band spectrum
• 21:49
  because then AST has, you know, nationwide coverage 45 megahertz
• 21:55
  in the US and Canada. And so that's really powerful,
• 21:59
  right? Because then then the carriers
• 22:01
  can start doing offload, offload traffic to you and pay you for
• 22:05
  that. Like there's additional money
• 22:06
  there. It's not just about per
• 22:08
  subscriber usage, but it's also like, I'm going to pay you,
• 22:12
  you're going to become a a wholesale capacity provider and
• 22:16
  I'm going to offload traffic to you.
• 22:18
  Like that's super powerful, right?
• 22:19
  And that's not built into the model that people are talking
• 22:21
  about. The other thing is, is you know,
• 22:25
  what is, how does that spectrum's value improve, right?
• 22:28
  Because there's, there's two values for spectrum.
• 22:30
  One is if you actually buy it and you know, if you, if you buy
• 22:35
  it in an auction or you buy acquire company, there's,
• 22:38
  there's a base value that you pay for spectrum, which could
• 22:40
  be, you know, 70 cents, 8090 cents sometimes for high premium
• 22:45
  spectrum, it could be $2.00, what we call per megahertz pop.
• 22:49
  And so that the math there is, if you assume in the US, like
• 22:54
  340 million users in the US and then you multiply that by the
• 22:59
  spectrum, that's, that's how you get to.
• 23:01
  And then you do, you know, that's how you get to this, this
• 23:04
  value of per megahertz pop. So when people talk about like
• 23:08
  $0.10 per megahertz pop, you know, that equates to if, if, if
• 23:12
  you were looking at 100 megahertz of spectrum, that
• 23:14
  would be $3.4 billion, right? And so in the instance where,
• 23:19
  and I, I went through this math yesterday just to as an example,
• 23:23
  right? Like, so if AST is able to
• 23:25
  extract an additional, I don't know, like, and this is
• 23:30
  conservative, right? Like if they are able to take 50
• 23:33
  and I, I use 50 because it's a round Number.
• 23:35
  But if they're able to take 50 megahertz of spectrum and make
• 23:39
  it into effectively for satellite use like 150 megahertz
• 23:43
  of spectrum. So an additional uplift of 100
• 23:45
  megahertz of capacity right through these efficiency
• 23:48
  improvements. And this is a 3X, we're not
• 23:50
  talking about 10X, but 3X if you apply like let's say $0.40 to
• 23:54
  that across just the US market, like that is worth $13.6
• 23:58
  billion, right? And so we talked about this idea
• 24:00
  of legato spectrum value being part of, you know, your, some of
• 24:05
  the parts analysis where, you know, depending on what your
• 24:08
  assumptions are, it could be worth 15 billion, it could be
• 24:11
  worth 20 billion. And then with these efficiency
• 24:14
  improvements over time at 3X, let's just say 3X and $0.40 per
• 24:18
  pop, that's like 13.6 billion of additional value, right?
• 24:23
  Because people need to understand, like spectrum is the
• 24:25
  lifeblood of the wireless industry.
• 24:27
  It's finite. There's only so much of it,
• 24:29
  which is why the FCC is like trying to go back to legacy
• 24:33
  applications. And we did this with terrestrial
• 24:36
  TV, by the way. Like we cleared out all these
• 24:38
  old TV stations to free up, I think it was like 600 megahertz
• 24:41
  spectrum. And then then, yeah, the FCC
• 24:44
  went up and auctioned that spectrum, which T-Mobile bought
• 24:46
  a decent amount because T-Mobile Once Upon a time had no low band
• 24:50
  spectrum. So their, their service offering
• 24:52
  was really crappy. It was shitty for anyone who
• 24:55
  used T-Mobile back in the 90s, like you couldn't, you couldn't
• 24:59
  go into a building and get service because it was all mid
• 25:02
  band spectrum. They had no low band spectrum.
• 25:04
  And so if you were in a building, you lost service.
• 25:08
  If you like started walking down into the subway, you lost
• 25:10
  service. It was, it was horrendous.
• 25:12
  Like even in rural areas, the service is bad because they only
• 25:15
  had mid band spectrum. And for them, they had T-Mobile
• 25:18
  had to build out a ton of towers in order to provide coverage.
• 25:22
  And, and that was an impossible thing to do because it was very
• 25:25
  expensive. However, because you know, after
• 25:28
  they merged with Sprint and they had more money, they were able
• 25:31
  to go buy 600 megahertz spectrum in auction and that really
• 25:35
  improved their network. And This is why AST space mobile
• 25:39
  shareholders keep harping on the fact that all of these, these
• 25:42
  MSS solutions or mid band spectrum solutions like what
• 25:47
  Starlink is a case point example where they're running on 1.9
• 25:50
  gigahertz or global stars at 2.4 gigahertz.
• 25:54
  Like the, you know, they, they don't, they don't have that much
• 25:59
  spectrum to begin with. They're also utilizing very
• 26:02
  small aperture satellites. And so those, those services are
• 26:05
  crappy, right? Like they don't, they don't
• 26:07
  have, first of all, they will never have good coverage or
• 26:10
  propagation. And then on top of that, the
• 26:12
  data, the data that they're delivering, the speeds are, are
• 26:15
  very slow and there's packet losses.
• 26:16
  I mean, there's like a whole host of of issues, right?
• 26:18
  But, but if you're able to build like this layered cake where you
• 26:23
  have access to low band spectrum and you utilize it, which is the
• 26:26
  fundamental part of ASD service is having, you know, making sure
• 26:31
  that you are connected at all times in dead zones, in areas
• 26:35
  that are on the edge between threshold, the threshold network
• 26:39
  and in the dead zone, you're going to have coverage, right?
• 26:42
  And and that's that's why Verizon and AT&T for the longest
• 26:46
  time took a majority of subscribers in the US market
• 26:49
  because they had a lock on low band spectrum, which is why
• 26:53
  Verizon, you know, can you hear me now?
• 26:55
  That whole, that whole campaign was so effective because Verizon
• 27:01
  had the best coverage. And yeah, it from in certain
• 27:05
  areas, it didn't have the best speed, but it didn't matter,
• 27:07
  right? Like coverage is always going to
• 27:09
  trump speed. Like in the in, in an area where
• 27:13
  there's no connectivity, no one cares about speed because like
• 27:17
  if you, if you're not connected, then what's what's the point of
• 27:19
  view and worry about speed? You have to have the ability to
• 27:23
  connect to a network and call someone or send messages or, you
• 27:26
  know, send images Or if you're, you know, for me, someone who's
• 27:31
  always closely monitoring the market and if I'm out on
• 27:34
  vacation, like I need connectivity, like if I'm, if
• 27:37
  I'm on the beach or I'm camping or skiing, you know, my wife
• 27:43
  bought these like two way radios for us so we could stay
• 27:46
  connected to the kids. And it's been the godsend
• 27:47
  because we now the kids are at their age where they can like go
• 27:51
  off on their own with their friends.
• 27:53
  But if I had mobile coverage, then we wouldn't need these
• 27:56
  walkie talkies, right? Like, and, and we could talk to
• 27:59
  them on their, their watches, But that's not the case.
• 28:02
  And imagine like all these ski resorts who have invested in, in
• 28:08
  connectivity like Wi-Fi or whatever, like you don't need
• 28:10
  that anymore. It's people are just going to be
• 28:11
  covered by their, their cell, you know, the cell plans.
• 28:14
  And so the key thing for AST is like the, the entire service is
• 28:20
  built upon low band spectrum, right?
• 28:22
  And so that is a fundamental differentiator that no one else
• 28:26
  has and no one will have, right? I mean, unless Starlink comes
• 28:31
  out tomorrow and says, hey, you know, these AST guys who
• 28:34
  invented the market, they were right again.
• 28:36
  We first of all, previously are small phased arrays.
• 28:40
  They're too small. We need to go big and and also
• 28:44
  we need to go even bigger because we, you know, in order
• 28:47
  to address low band spectrum, we need to build a much bigger
• 28:50
  satellite. And in the future, because
• 28:53
  Starlink has played its hand and made it known that eventually
• 28:56
  they want to compete with M and OS.
• 28:57
  Like no one's going to give them that low band spectrum.
• 29:00
  Like who, who in their right mind would do that?
• 29:02
  Who is going to enable your biggest direct threat by saying,
• 29:06
  Oh yeah, here you can lease some of our low band spectrum or
• 29:09
  we'll enter a partnership with you that that would be
• 29:13
  strategically, you know, suicidal like a pretty dumb
• 29:16
  mistake. But you know, you have some
• 29:20
  bears that say, well, AST they they made a tactical mistake by
• 29:24
  partnering with the Amanos. That makes like absolutely no
• 29:26
  sense because the Amanos own the customer.
• 29:28
  They already have it now they own all the low band spectrum.
• 29:31
  They're not, they're not ever going to give that up.
• 29:32
  And if instead of having antagonistic and competitive
• 29:36
  relationship, like we're going to work with them, right, we're
• 29:39
  going to make their service better and we're going to share
• 29:42
  in the UPS with them. And So what better model is
• 29:44
  there? They, they, they invested in
• 29:47
  that spectrum, which is worth multiples what they ever paid.
• 29:51
  And there's no way like we, we would ever be able to buy that
• 29:55
  spectrum, nor would Starlink. If Starlink, by the way, wanted
• 29:58
  to get into the carrier business, they would actually
• 30:01
  have to go out and buy T-Mobile, which I guess when they go
• 30:03
  public, that's possible. But once they do that, then
• 30:08
  other carriers around the world be like, oh, these guys are
• 30:10
  they're, they're coming to eat our lunch.
• 30:12
  And so I'm not going to let them get a foothold in, in Europe or
• 30:15
  wherever it is, right. And well, the day that SpaceX
• 30:18
  buys T-Mobile, that's where Verizon, AT&T are like, OK, I
• 30:21
  guess, I guess, you know, we're going to fully, more fully
• 30:24
  integrate with AST. They become an even more
• 30:26
  critical partner. And then everybody else do like
• 30:29
  Google, Amazon, everybody is like, OK, we need to work with
• 30:33
  AST because this, these guys are vertically integrated and, and
• 30:38
  we've become much bigger competitive and existential
• 30:41
  threat. Excuse me.
• 30:43
  But going back to this whole spectrum alchemy thing, again, I
• 30:49
  think it's important that because of our enabling
• 30:51
  technology, not only do we are we the only partner that makes
• 30:56
  Legato possible to get through these interference concerns, But
• 30:59
  then globally, if you think about, you know, I think ViaSat
• 31:02
  has has talked about wanting to deploy the XUSL band spectrum
• 31:08
  for a directed device service And they're going to capitalize
• 31:10
  it with two other partners for $1 billion.
• 31:12
  Like as we all know that that's not nearly enough money.
• 31:16
  And if you're going to do that through a prime contractor, good
• 31:20
  luck. Like that's going to, there's
• 31:21
  going to be a lot of inefficiency and and heartache
• 31:24
  to actually get a consolation up.
• 31:27
  But AST is the best equipped to do that.
• 31:29
  And so in my mind, because we have the most profitable part of
• 31:33
  L band, which is North America and it's going to be hard for
• 31:37
  them to put up an economic consolation.
• 31:39
  Eventually, I think Biasat will work something out with AST
• 31:43
  where we get the rest of L band globally, which I think like,
• 31:49
  well, first of all, if you look at the contracts that the two
• 31:51
  company that ASD entered into Obogato, which which Biasat
• 31:56
  supposedly had supported and then they backed away.
• 31:59
  We have an ability to go pursue Aliban globally like they can't
• 32:02
  hinder us. And and that's been part of the
• 32:04
  legal dispute for quite some time, which funny enough, when
• 32:09
  Biasat found, well, let me take a step back.
• 32:12
  So when we entered into this deal with Legato, we paid Legato
• 32:16
  money and Legato is also, they own some portion of the Laliban
• 32:20
  and then they're also leasing part of the L band to make it
• 32:23
  contiguous and, and more robust from ViaSat.
• 32:26
  And so they owed ViaSat a lot of money.
• 32:28
  And because they were in bankruptcy, there was, you know,
• 32:31
  ViaSat was hoping they were like rubbing their hands together.
• 32:33
  I hope these guys go bankrupt and then were able to buy their
• 32:36
  spectrum out of, of bankruptcy. But then ASD came in and said,
• 32:39
  Hey, we've got, we want to enter this long term agreement.
• 32:42
  We're going to give you a percentage of the revenues from
• 32:45
  the ongoing business and then for for the US and then we will
• 32:50
  pay you $420 million, right, which is just enough to pay
• 32:54
  ViaSat what they were owed. And so for those that are that
• 32:58
  don't know, like ViaSat was trading at 10 bucks and because
• 33:01
  AST came in and got them their money, you know, ViaSat was over
• 33:06
  leveraged and people were like, what are they going to do is
• 33:08
  business because ViaSat by the way, their core business of
• 33:12
  providing high speed Internet to airlines is getting the luncheon
• 33:16
  by Starlink, right? And so now ViaSat, oh, is it,
• 33:20
  you know, they, they, it's funny 'cause they're, if it wasn't for
• 33:23
  AST's existence of creating this market and paying them money
• 33:28
  directly, ViaSat would probably be bankrupt or heading to
• 33:31
  bankruptcy. However, the stock is completely
• 33:33
  re rated because people are like, oh, there there's this
• 33:36
  like new direct to device market.
• 33:37
  And the speculation is that ViaSat is worth more dead than
• 33:41
  live like their spectrum, the spectrum rights that they have
• 33:43
  globally for LBAN are worth a lot, right?
• 33:45
  And so the idea if you're a vice that shoulder is that you're
• 33:49
  hoping that this management does not spend money to put up a
• 33:52
  directive device consolation that they enter into a leasing
• 33:55
  agreement where they share with some upside with AST or they
• 33:59
  they sell spectrum to AST or the the dreamers are like, maybe AST
• 34:03
  will buy them or merge with them, which I think is a silly
• 34:06
  idea. I don't think it's going to
• 34:07
  happen, but but it's funny because you have some of these
• 34:11
  detractors like this guy, this satellite consultant, Stuart
• 34:15
  Taylor, who by the way, like just for those that don't know,
• 34:19
  this guy's like an independent consultant.
• 34:21
  And I put that in quotes because he had been working with Biosat,
• 34:24
  I think 3 years ago and thought that Biosat was going to, you
• 34:28
  know, Biosat was going to create this, this unbelievable directed
• 34:32
  device service, which, you know, it's a legacy satellite company
• 34:36
  like they have. No, they, they were Pooh poohing
• 34:39
  this idea for many years. And then, and then all of a
• 34:41
  sudden they were going to pivot and become a big player in this.
• 34:43
  And then of course, you know, the stock went from like, I
• 34:45
  think it was the 30s or 40s down to 10.
• 34:48
  And then once AST entered into that transaction and highlighted
• 34:52
  the value of L band spectrum, that's when ViaSat took off and
• 34:55
  re rated. But this guy, he started, he
• 34:59
  owns ViaSat chairs. He was down big.
• 35:00
  And then once, once Biasat became litigious with AST and
• 35:05
  tried to get out of the deal, that's when he started posting
• 35:08
  all this fun. So that that's his background.
• 35:10
  Like he, he, I guess on LinkedIn, some people found
• 35:13
  these messages. I mean, these posts from three
• 35:16
  years ago where he talks about how, you know, he's invested in
• 35:19
  Biosat and he knows Mark Stenberg personally.
• 35:22
  So clearly he's, you know, this has stopped before he he could
• 35:26
  make posts that he was an independent, unbiased consultant
• 35:30
  and he was just commenting with all this fight about AST,
• 35:32
  whereas, oh, it's clear he's a he's a Biasat shoulder.
• 35:35
  He knows Mark Dangberg closely. He's done work with Guppy
• 35:37
  before. So, so and then he became vocal
• 35:40
  about how negative he was on ASD and that he wanted people to
• 35:44
  like, I guess he didn't want people to lose their money.
• 35:47
  It was like back last fall and it happened to coincide with the
• 35:51
  timing that Biasat became litigious.
• 35:53
  So anyway that that's that guy's background.
• 35:55
  So if if he posts stuff, just know the where where he's coming
• 35:59
  from this worse. But but yeah, for, for, for Asti
• 36:05
  think well, first of all, going back to the the contract, we, we
• 36:08
  have the ability to go pursue L band globally.
• 36:11
  What we have to do though is if we are able to get L band in
• 36:15
  certain jurisdictions, then we have to make sure that we
• 36:18
  coordinate with Bisat so we're not interfering with them.
• 36:21
  But beyond that, we're free to do that.
• 36:23
  And and so that, that's very valuable because I think when
• 36:27
  you go to regulators or potential partners, if you're
• 36:32
  able to whip out like, hey, we can deliver, you know, a
• 36:37
  spectral efficiency OF567 bits per Hertz for our system and
• 36:43
  deliver true high speed broadband.
• 36:45
  And then you've got, you know, some other player that is going
• 36:50
  to develop a consolation in few years time and hopefully get it
• 36:54
  deployed and be competitive with AST and Starlink.
• 36:58
  That's not a very good alternative, right?
• 37:00
  And so it's going to help the company win additional spectrum
• 37:05
  globally. And so that's L band.
• 37:07
  There's also 20 by 20 megahertz of S band that's up for grabs,
• 37:12
  which was not part of the FCC order being able to go to
• 37:17
  regulators globally. Like we're going to be able to
• 37:18
  go to Europe and say, hey, for satellite connect Europe, we are
• 37:23
  getting spectral efficiency where we're going to be able to
• 37:25
  deliver, I don't know, within the cell like 200 megabits per
• 37:28
  second, 250 megabits per second. That's a game changer.
• 37:32
  And let you know, put Europe aside.
• 37:35
  Like I think Europe's an attractive market, but I've,
• 37:38
  I've become more, I guess focused on the Middle Eastern
• 37:43
  market where we have a very significant partnership the most
• 37:48
  in terms of financial commitment.
• 37:49
  I think it's probably the biggest partnership with Saudi
• 37:52
  Telecom and Saudi Telecom operates in a number of Gulf
• 37:56
  states. But if you can think about like,
• 37:59
  like Europe is pretty, you know, it's a pretty compared to the US
• 38:02
  or, or the Middle East, like it, it's more dense of a population,
• 38:05
  it's easier to cover terrestrially.
• 38:07
  But outside of that, of course, if you're, if you're laying on
• 38:10
  MSS spectrum and providing broadband, it doesn't matter
• 38:13
  about, you know, terrestrial tower coverage, because this is
• 38:16
  going to be not only dead zone and and of course, you know,
• 38:20
  emergency services first responder network, But you can
• 38:23
  do what I was saying before. You can actually do offloading,
• 38:26
  like bringing additional capacity to M and OS in times of
• 38:30
  peak usage where the terrestrial network has too much traffic.
• 38:33
  Or you can offload some of that satellite, because again, it's
• 38:36
  like if you get 10 by 10 megahertz is completely separate
• 38:39
  network that sits on top of terrestrial network.
• 38:42
  But in the Middle East here you have very large swaths of land
• 38:48
  and the population centers are very dense.
• 38:51
  But outside there's a ton of, there's a ton of arid land,
• 38:55
  right? And, and so connectivity issues
• 38:57
  are much bigger in the Middle East.
• 38:58
  And of course, as we know, like the per capita of users in the
• 39:03
  Middle East is really high, right?
• 39:05
  Like imagine who are the target customers in Saudi Arabia for
• 39:08
  Saudi Telecom, 15 dollars, $20.00 a month is probably it's
• 39:14
  not even, it's not even crumbs under a couch.
• 39:16
  Like it's, it's, it's not even a, a thing that you think about.
• 39:19
  Like the for most of the populous, connectivity is
• 39:23
  important and having a high end plan where they can be connected
• 39:28
  on their yacht, you know, out in the Gulf, probably not in the
• 39:32
  Strait of Hormuz, but you know, somewhere else in the Gulf.
• 39:34
  Or if they're out in the, you know, I, I candidly, I've never
• 39:39
  been to the least, but I can imagine the, the topography and
• 39:43
  like where the urban centers are and then the distance between
• 39:46
  those. But coverage is probably super
• 39:48
  important, right? And so I think the Middle East
• 39:52
  quite candidly is, is it could be a much more lucrative market,
• 39:56
  especially relative to how many users are served there and how
• 40:00
  much, how little capacity you actually have to allocate to the
• 40:04
  Middle East versus what the dollars that it brings in.
• 40:07
  But, but the, the use cases are going to be huge and we have the
• 40:10
  most key player there, right? And so I think when, when taking
• 40:16
  account our spectral efficiency like this, there's a big case to
• 40:20
  be made where you won't need terrestrial towers and, and
• 40:25
  building out those towers in much of the Middle East because
• 40:27
  you're just going to lay down satellite coverage, right?
• 40:30
  And it's going to be way more efficient, especially for that
• 40:32
  use case. And this this goes also to
• 40:36
  whether it's like Africa, some of these other areas where you
• 40:41
  have a large landmass and the population centers are very
• 40:43
  dense. But to get the incremental
• 40:45
  coverage for a majority of, you know, the geography, it's just
• 40:50
  way too expensive terrestrially. So, you know, Latin America,
• 40:53
  parts of of Asia, you know, it's going to be much more efficient,
• 40:58
  right? And so I think, yeah, this going
• 41:03
  back to spectral efficiency and, and this patent and this is just
• 41:07
  one patent out of, you know, 3800 patents and patent pending
• 41:12
  claims. Now, obviously some of those are
• 41:13
  overlapping, but I'm curious to see like, what else is there so
• 41:18
  we can just get these like little Nuggets of what the
• 41:22
  company's doing. And in conversations with
• 41:24
  management or earnings calls, you get like little hints of
• 41:28
  you. You'd see like the edges in the
• 41:30
  corners of what's going on, but you don't really get to see the
• 41:32
  full picture. And so, you know, when, when a
• 41:36
  bell made the claim of getting additional efficiency where
• 41:39
  capacity could be increased from near term three times to longer
• 41:43
  term 10 times. Yeah, that's, that's a very
• 41:47
  staggering statement. It's, it's something that I
• 41:52
  think shows the competitive, you know, lead that the company has
• 41:58
  where we've been thinking about these issues for many years
• 42:00
  within the context of three GPP and and broadband mobile
• 42:05
  devices. Whereas all these competitors
• 42:08
  are now deciding, oh, we want it, we want to get into the
• 42:11
  business and they don't have, they don't have the experience
• 42:14
  or, or the development cycles that we have had, right.
• 42:17
  And so ASD for, for its existence has not been
• 42:21
  litigious. Ultimately, how those 3800
• 42:26
  patents are used from a business perspective is to be seen, you
• 42:30
  know, there there's, there's there's no multiple ways that
• 42:33
  could be used. One would be if you wanted to
• 42:35
  use it as an offensive weapon and stop people from innovating
• 42:39
  around utilizing your, your technology or something similar
• 42:42
  and innovating to compete against you.
• 42:45
  You could do that or you could do things cooperatively.
• 42:49
  You could actually go out and just like a lot of memory
• 42:52
  companies, for example, you could go license the technology
• 42:55
  and help enable at least some of the the fundamental patents to
• 43:01
  let let some of your competitors or I don't know, partners
• 43:05
  utilize those and then you collect royalties or licensing
• 43:09
  fees. And so I think, you know, that
• 43:14
  there's this idea when you talk to some institutional investors
• 43:19
  that AST has, but they're building this large patent
• 43:23
  business where, for example, you know, we've discussed AI data
• 43:26
  centers, but microns, the heat dissipation technology, the
• 43:31
  ability to put up a large solar array and run power and offset,
• 43:38
  you know, release that power into space.
• 43:41
  Those patents are really valuable, right?
• 43:43
  And so for all these companies that are pursuing whether, you
• 43:46
  know, I just read over the weekend that Star Cloud this
• 43:49
  like a, a data center company that raised a billion dollar
• 43:52
  evaluation, maybe it's like a month or two ago due to the
• 43:56
  hype. Now they're raising at a $2
• 43:58
  billion evaluation. Like all these companies that
• 44:01
  are, you know, pursuing this, this area, they're going to run
• 44:05
  into some of our patents. And so I again, I'm not sure how
• 44:08
  the company plans to monetize those.
• 44:10
  Like if and if they're playing monetize them, you know, they
• 44:13
  may pursue them. They may utilize them as
• 44:15
  roadblocks, right, or antique damages and do whatever or they
• 44:19
  might for folks who are not competing directly with us, they
• 44:22
  might enter into partnerships and and drive some financial
• 44:26
  benefit through again, royalties or licensing extremes.
• 44:29
  So but yeah, I think, I think this past week, you know, as,
• 44:36
  as, as a stock languishes and the space sector opened weekly
• 44:40
  in in a week fashion. And I guess things are
• 44:42
  rebounding to a degree. We're going to learn quite a
• 44:45
  bit. And I know folks have put
• 44:47
  together some good questions for management, but I think one
• 44:51
  important question is to ask about this particular patent
• 44:54
  and, and perhaps additional patents like how, how do you,
• 44:58
  about, how do you plan on getting 3X efficiency up and
• 45:01
  then getting up to 10X efficiency like that?
• 45:04
  That to me is an absolute game changer.
• 45:06
  It's something that you can, we can all hem and Haw about the,
• 45:12
  the, the, the architecture of the satellite and the phase
• 45:17
  array and the microns and the processors, but the secret
• 45:21
  sauces is getting extracting these levels of improvement
• 45:25
  where you're going to leave guys like Starlink and eventually
• 45:30
  Amazon global Star, which, you know, maybe I should dedicate a
• 45:33
  whole podcast talking about the issues that they've got to get
• 45:37
  through to provide at least narrow band data.
• 45:40
  But they're going to, by the time they get to a point where
• 45:44
  they're, they're hitting performance levels of block 1
• 45:47
  satellites, we're going to be on block 4 or Block 5, right?
• 45:50
  And so, and as, as Cook mentioned over the weekend, like
• 45:54
  if you look at how Elan is compensated for the SpaceX IPO,
• 45:59
  it's going to be to get to deport a million people on Mars.
• 46:04
  And it's going to be for a, a data centers.
• 46:06
  This is not going to be, this is going to be an important focus,
• 46:09
  but it's it's not going to be at the end of the day, like if, if
• 46:13
  dollars have to be allocated, your smartest engineers have to
• 46:15
  be put towards certain projects. This is not going to be it, I
• 46:19
  don't think. But that said, that said, like
• 46:22
  it's because in order to sustain a two $2 trillion valuation,
• 46:27
  like you need to, you need the biggest fish to fry and you need
• 46:31
  the biggest dream for people, right?
• 46:33
  But as, as Cook mentioned, you know, even Amazon, the earnings
• 46:37
  call this past week was like, this is the market that we need
• 46:39
  to serve. We need to provide 100%
• 46:41
  connectivity to our customers. And so that's why we bought
• 46:44
  Global Star because, and this is what they said, by the way, it's
• 46:47
  because their spectrum is really valuable.
• 46:49
  But they didn't say anything about the satellites because
• 46:51
  they don't have a satellite yet. They didn't say anything about
• 46:54
  how they're going to deploy the service.
• 46:56
  But they, they've, they've done an important step, which is to
• 46:58
  buy spectrum. It's not, it's not a lot of
• 47:00
  spectrum, but it is spectrum and all spectrum is valuable, right?
• 47:04
  And so I think some people have speculated that perhaps AST and
• 47:09
  Amazon could work together in the future.
• 47:11
  Absolutely, they could Amazon, you know, if there was, if there
• 47:16
  was a world where the carriers became comfortable with Amazon
• 47:20
  and said, hey, let's let's light up their spectrum with AST and
• 47:24
  that will be part of the the package to provide great
• 47:28
  broadband to our customers, then there could be something there,
• 47:30
  right? But I don't think that's going
• 47:33
  to happen unless, you know, without the approval of them a
• 47:36
  nose, right, because in the day, like they're our ultimate
• 47:39
  customer and they are all our our ultimate enabling partner,
• 47:44
  which, you know, the guys who don't understand this market
• 47:48
  will say that that's the Achilles heel of the company,
• 47:50
  but it's actually the biggest strength, right?
• 47:53
  And, and Kathy's talked about this before, which is being a, a
• 47:58
  cooperative and additive partner versus being antagonistic, which
• 48:01
  is what Starlink is. I mean, there's a reason why
• 48:06
  Deutsche Telekom CEO is physically says, like, we know
• 48:09
  who Elan is, We know Starlink, you know, we, they're, they know
• 48:12
  that they're dancing with the tiger and they're not going to
• 48:15
  make strategic mistakes, which arguably they already made a
• 48:18
  strategic mistake, but I guess they're not going to let that
• 48:22
  mistake compound over time. But you know, they've already
• 48:27
  seeded the idea and they've, they've blown Starlink mobile
• 48:31
  into existence, right? By, by partner, by T-Mobile
• 48:34
  partnering with, with Starlink and getting the service off the
• 48:37
  ground. They can't put the genie back in
• 48:39
  the bottle like it's, it's, it's out, it's out now.
• 48:42
  And so from a strategic perspective, that's something
• 48:46
  that they're going to have to deal with, right?
• 48:47
  Like Starlink now knows where their customers are, where their
• 48:51
  pain points are 'cause when their customers roam on the
• 48:53
  Starlink network and they know exactly where all the traffic is
• 48:57
  and, and what areas. And so it's like, hey, let's go
• 48:59
  sell Starlink fixed wireless to these people and let's go when
• 49:04
  we try to develop some type of competing service without low
• 49:07
  band spectrum, but we're going to go target these areas 1st.
• 49:11
  And so you've with this whole T satellite powered by Starlink,
• 49:15
  you've breathed them into existence.
• 49:17
  This idea that that for T-Mobile user and for anybody, oh,
• 49:23
  Starlink is a competitor and, and maybe I can just get my
• 49:26
  mobile service from Starlink, which is, it's pretty funny,
• 49:30
  right? Like it's, it's going to be a
• 49:32
  Harvard Business case study, I think where they're going to
• 49:35
  show the do's and don'ts and, and Starlink mobile T-Mobile
• 49:39
  breathing it into existence is going to be one of the biggest
• 49:42
  strategic errors that Harvard is going to teach Business School
• 49:46
  students where these guys who are short sighted, who wanted to
• 49:50
  get like a lot of marketing hype and, and spin for a short term,
• 49:56
  you know, or maybe a few quarters they gave away, they,
• 50:02
  they breathed a, a competitor into existence and, and it
• 50:06
  became dependent on it and they got hollowed out.
• 50:08
  You know, who knows ultimately where that will be, but there is
• 50:11
  a, there is a potential avenue, of course, you know, I've talked
• 50:14
  about where T-Mobile does end up joining with AST Space Mobile
• 50:17
  and AT&T and Verizon. And that would be if, if they
• 50:22
  decide to point the gun to their own head and say, Hey, if you
• 50:25
  guys don't let me in, I'm going to enable Starlink mobile by
• 50:28
  letting them become an MVNO. And if I was, if I was T-Mobile
• 50:31
  and desperate, that's that's what I would do, right?
• 50:33
  Like if, if AST Space mobile service, once I see it taking
• 50:36
  off and I'm suffering in terms of customer turn, then I would
• 50:41
  point the gun to my head and say I'm going to blow my brains out
• 50:43
  and I'm going to take you guys with me unless you let me in.
• 50:46
  And so I'll end this space there with that beautiful thought.
• 50:50
  But but yeah, I think I'm sure perhaps maybe in the future, I
• 50:55
  see cats out there, maybe what we'll get them on and we'll talk
• 50:58
  more about some of the technical details.
• 50:59
  But but yeah, this is this is a cool look into what AST is
• 51:05
  doing. And I think this is what really
• 51:09
  separates the company from the the competitors, which is the
• 51:13
  ability to have a large phased array.
• 51:16
  Doing this on first principles where you build an initial
• 51:19
  service with low end spectrum, you layer mid band spectrum on
• 51:23
  top of it and you extract additional capacity gains over
• 51:27
  time. And so that that service
• 51:30
  improves and the user experience improves.
• 51:32
  And yeah, it's it's going to be hard for anyone to catch that,
• 51:35
  especially working with large M and OS who own the customer
• 51:38
  ready, who will be paying for marketing support, service, all
• 51:43
  that stuff while we focus on the technology and delivering the
• 51:46
  service. So I'll end it there.
• 51:48
  Thanks everyone for joining as well.
• 51:50
  Before I end it, you know, we have the quarterly update next
• 51:54
  week based off of Space Mop due diligence, I think.
• 51:59
  Yeah, there could be some rumblings around shipping at
• 52:02
  some point in the next week or two.
• 52:05
  Seems like things are going OK or going well actually.
• 52:08
  And I did hint at this before, but there is some speculation
• 52:11
  that Blue Origin New Glen is going to get off the ground.
• 52:14
  New Glen 4 is going to launch sooner than we all expect.
• 52:17
  And so, so yeah, exciting times. And then of course, as we all
• 52:21
  know, the first 3 batches of Block 2 Bluebirds are going to
• 52:26
  be on Falcon 9. And so, you know, probably
• 52:28
  looking at sometime at the earliest of June launch, June,
• 52:32
  July and August over the at that time period.
• 52:35
  So I'm going to try to keep my calendar pretty flexible.
• 52:38
  I'm hoping to get down there again because I want to see our
• 52:41
  our babies go up and looking forward to seeing people again.
• 52:45
  But but yeah, let's run it back like we're going to this June,
• 52:52
  May launch, the batch launch in June, bat shipment and then June
• 52:57
  launch. I really think you know, the
• 52:59
  coil has been has been winding and we are we've been
• 53:03
  consolidating for a really long period here.
• 53:05
  I think we're going to be hitting new all time highs in
• 53:08
  the coming weeks and months. So on to there.
• 53:11
  Thanks everyone for joining and we'll talk again soon.
• 53:14
  Take care. Thanks for listening to the AST
• 53:18
  Space Mover podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and
• 53:21
  you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with
• 53:24
  others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and
• 53:27
  review. To catch all the latest news
• 53:30
  about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe.
• 53:33
  Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
• 53:39
  We're doing something very, very big, an activity technology.
• 53:42
  We can really affect billion lives.
• 53:44
  AFT Space Mobile is the only company that had food technology
• 53:49
  to deliver cellular robot connectivity directly from space
• 53:53
  to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn
• 53:56
  their phone be seamless, regardless of where you are.
• 54:00
  We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
• 54:02
  satellite. Our role is to bring this into
• 54:06
  reality, always in partnership with the MMO Listen.
• 54:22
  Waffles.