OVERVIEW
AST Spacemobile (ticker: ASTS) is on the vanguard of both the 5G secular trend and the new space economy. Spacemobile will provide global 5G coverage anywhere on land, sea, or airplane by utilizing a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites each the size of a tennis court. Operating with a B2B model, Spacemobile will operate using the same cellular frequencies terrestrial mobile network operators (MNOs) already license and use. Providing complete global coverage Spacemobile will eliminate all dead zones land, sea, and air for MNOs by acting as an extension of their network. Spacemobile has a highly scalable business model that will be able to quickly close the digital divide and rapidly grow its revenue.
DISCLAIMER: This is not financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. Do your own due diligence.
SERVICE
Spacemobile will provide low cost cellular service to all existing smartphones anywhere on Earth via satellite. This service will be offered through consumers existing service providers either via text prompt when leaving coverage or through a regular plan. Consumers will be able to select from plans offering 2G up to 5G speeds with different data limits. This will be the most accessible means to the internet for hundreds of millions of people in developing countries where cell towers and satellite internet are not feasible/affordable.
TECHNOLOGY
The satellites will be called BlueBirds orbiting at an altitude of 700 km (430 miles), each with an aperture size of about 18x20 meters or 331 square meters (693 sqft) weighing 1.5 to 2 US tons. Each production satellite will be identical and consist of a central bus/control module, magnetorquers (adjust pitch/yaw), Hall-effect thrusters (ionized plasma thruster), and many sets of phased array cells called microns. The microns are similar to the antennas you see attached to cell towers except they are designed for the rigors of space and have solar cells affixed to the back. In order to fit the BlueBirds into a rocket the microns are folded carefully around the control module and will unfold using spring hinges like flower petals unfurling. SpaceX and GK Launch will be the 2 primary launch providers, both with excellent records. Total constellation will be 336 satellites by 2028 with a surface area of 111,000 square meters or 1.2 million square feet (for comparison Starlink only plans 71,000 square meters). Although the satellite will be very large, it is only a few centimeters thick flying perpendicular to Earth making the risk of collision to its cross section minimal.
The BlueBirds utilize what is called bent pipe architecture to convert fronthaul (cellular data) back and forth with backhaul (high bandwidth network connection). Bent pipe architecture allows the received signal to be phase shifted in real time by a transponder and amplified before being beamed back. Backhaul to base stations will be handled through the high capacity V and Q band frequencies. The satellites computers do not handle the network routing/processing that MNOs already handle, think of a cell tower in space. The only computing the satellite will do (other than flight operations) is establishing and maintaining a signal which each user. Each MNO would have one or more receiving antenna in each country at its network gateway to manage the routing of packets and protocol compliance on its own network.
Many people struggle to get coverage a few miles from a cell tower, so how does the signal travel over 700 km without losing connection or delays. A very tall FR1 mobile base station tower can provide a connection of around 50-70 km with a perfect line of sight and no attenuation due to obstructions (buildings, hills, trees, walls, etc.) before signal is lost due to the curvature of the earth (GSM protocol reduces this to 35 km). An electromagnetic wave can travel quite far in space (think Voyager 1) unobstructed, so a satellite overhead has the perfect vantage point to you at all times (except middle of skyscrapers, some basements, and tunnels). For a satellite to connect to a cell phone is simply a question of power and gain. A cell phone is .25 W of power and .5 DBI of gain, which isn’t much. To be able to send a signal that can be detected you need a very powerful antenna (20 kW) and a very large array. Think of trying to talk to someone .4 km (¼ mile) away, you would need a very loud voice for them to hear you and very large ears to hear them. Peak gain mentioned in the FCC letters references -47 DBi (-50 DBi is full bars and -110 DBi is no connection) so the signal strength should be quite strong. Since the satellites are orbiting at 700 km there will be a signal delay (latency) of 30ms which is within the 5G 3GPP standards and would not be detectable to a user playing mobile games. Additionally, 5G speeds will be in excess of 35 mb/s (meets FCC definition that Spacemobile helped define).
Each satellite will be able to support a technology known as beamforming which uses the microns to concentrate and steer a signal. If you think of an RF signal from isotopic antenna transmitting signal in all directions like a light bulb, then beamforming is akin to a flashlight focusing the same light in a narrow beam to project further and brighter. As more antenna are added to a phased array the more focused beams can become and more beams can be created. Beamforming allows the array to reuse spectrum by pointing the same spectrum at different parts of the coverage area. Each BlueBird can support about 2,800 beams/coverage cells in low band and 10,000 in mid band (300-10,000 users per cell) providing 1.6 million gigabytes per month per satellite. Within each cell multiple frequencies can be sent and received simultaneously using MIMO. Coverage area for each satellite is about 2.4 million square miles. Within each cell spectrum is divided into buffer ranges of about 5-10 kHz which can be further recycled based on channel state information, adjusting the time phase, and polarity of the wave. Time Division duplex allows for uplink/downlink reciprocity (allows a phone to be heard at the same DBi it receives).The satellite applies linear receive combining to discriminate the signal transmitted by each terminal from interfering signals. Because the satellites are in space moving at a high speed (90 minute orbit) a Doppler effect is created which compresses or stretches the frequencies. Spacemobile has patented a way to compensate and correct these shifts and track the users movement down to the centimeter level. This means you can use your phone on a plane or in a car without issue.
Without going too deep into it, the reason MNOs use spectrum primarily between 600 MHz - 900 MHz, 1.7 GHz - 2.2 GHz and 3.5 GHz is because it offers the best combination of data capacity, licensing availability, and object penetration. Spacemobile is capable of operating within all of these ranges. 1 MHz is 1,000,000 cycles per second and each cycle can be used to transmit bits of data, so higher MHz means more data. But there is a trade off the higher you go on the EM spectrum the more issues the signal has with penetrating matter starting with solid objects like buildings, then with liquids (think rain fade with your satellite TV), gases such as air, and background radio signals. This is why Starlink requires a phased array receiver because it is operating on the KU (12,000 - 18,000 MHz) and KA (26,500 - 40,000) bands and has issues with rain fade. The Starlink receivers require a large size and power to pick up these signals. The size and power requirements of using these frequencies at range are the reason they can’t be used with smartphones.
Additionally Spacemobile is using Alitostar’s (recently acquired by Rakuten who is an investor and customer) O-Ran (open RAN) software to help virtualize each handset for the purposes of network handoffs, managing latency protocol, and overcoming the Doppler effect.
The technology was tested and validated using BlueWalker 1 which was a test satellite personally financed at $7.5 million by CEO Abel Avellan. This satellite was essentially a smartphone that was used to validate the principle of using 4G LTE protocol, sending/receiving cell signals from space, and resolving technical issues prior to BlueWalker 3 (the final prototype before mass production). This was a brilliant move by Abel. Instead of building a satellite and hoping it works, he was able to cost effectively test and refine his designs in real time on earth. BlueWalker 1 is still in orbit today presumably being used for testing.
TARGET MARKETS
Spacemobile is not a direct to consumer company, they are operating using a super wholesale B2B model. They plan to work with leading MNOs who own expensive spectrum (US spectrum auctions netted 80B) and fill in their network gaps. This will be game changing for people in developing countries who have no connection at all. Spacemobile will enable MNOs to offer plans at all price points to provide 2G service such as text, 3G voice, 4G LTE, and 5G packages and a la carte service. These are the people who will never be connected through a $500 receiver and laptop, but can afford a used phone for $10 and buy minutes, text, or data. In affluent counties subscribers can add roaming data packages with their carrier or enroll in a day pass through a text prompt. Total addressable market is anyone with a cell phone and those who live in developing countries without tower coverage, about 5 billion phones globally.
Potential secondary market opportunities include powering IoT devices are very low cost, providing disaster coverage, secure gps service for military/governments/enterprises, frequency jamming for military applications, police tracking, maritime communication, smart cars, smart logistics, drones, and much more.
Mobile data usage is growing exponentially at over 40% per year. Even in developed countries where home internet is common, mobile data has already surpassed home internet usage for users under 50. Spacemobile satellites have a much lower cost per gigabyte than a terrestrial cell tower due to their high vantage point, no leasing cost, and free solar power. Despite this advantage, satellites are not the solution for dense cities where it would be impossible to allocate enough spot beams to cover everyone.
REVENUE
Spacemobile is operating under a super wholesale business model where revenue is split 50:50 or better with its MNO partners. This is a brilliant strategy because the MNOs are paying billions for spectrum licensing, terrestrial infrastructure, customer acquisition costs, lobbying, and administration. Revenue is projected to start around $180 million in 2023 rapidly growing to $16.44 billion in 2030. EBITDA margins are projected to be above 96%. Total investment in the constellation is expected to be $3.3 billion by 2028 with a service life of 10 years means capex/revenue is 2%. Since mobile data grows at 40% annually it can be inferred that revenue would likely follow a similar trajectory after the initial growth phase.
Phase 1 will include equatorial regions with 20 satellites covering 1.6 billion people. Many of these people in South Asia, Africa, Pacific Islands, and South America do not have access to cell phone service where they live. Spacemobile has memorandums of understanding with MNOs representing 80% of this population, 1.3 billion people. In developing countries primarily talk and text will be offered while in more affluent countries higher price/data packages will be offered. The financial projections expect to have 180 million subscribers in this region or 11% market penetration. Pricing plans developing countries will likely range from $.75 to $2 and be offered along side a la carte plans offered via text when leaving tower coverage. Average revenue per user (ARPU) for the equatorial region is estimated to be approximately $1 per month according to the investor deck. Revenue is forecasted to be $181 million in 2023 and $1.07 billion in 2024.
Phase 2 will provide coverage across the rest of the world to the remaining 5 billion people (China and Japan excluded). In developed countries pricing plans could range from $5 - $25 monthly depending on the speeds and monthly data required, likewise day passes will be offered ad hoc for users exiting tower coverage. 11% market penetration is assumed as well for this remaining segment. ARPU for developed countries is estimated to be $7.6 per month in the investor presentation. In 2028, when phase 2 should be completed, revenue is expected to be $12.4 billion. Rakuten will have unlimited usage rights in Japan in exchange for $500,000 annual payment and the usage of their software.
VALUATIONS
Valuation is subjective to many variables, assumptions, discount rates, and timeframes. Barclay’s has a $29 price target for 2021 and Deutsche Bank has a price target of $35. Both recommendations use high discount rates and reduced assumptions about future margin and probabilities of success.
Taking the 2030 revenue projections verbatim we can roughly assume that the market cap would be about 263 billion given a modest 16 P/E multiple. Given about 211.5 million shares, assuming warrants (17.6 million outstanding) are the only dilution, you get a future share price of $1,243. This would represent over 120x return to the current share price (current price of $10.08 at a $1.8 billion market cap). Revenue projections could easily be lower or much higher than management anticipates.
The current market cap of ~$1.8 billion looks very attractive when compared to similar satcom companies like Starlink, currently valued at $80-$90 billion, who has a smaller potential customer/revenue base and may not be cash flow positive until 2030 (Spacemobile expects to be cash flow positive in 2023).
Additionally, Spacemobile has about $400 million cash, a valuable patent portfolio, andg 51% stake in NanoAvionics (a satellite manufacturer/operator who plans to get 30% nanosat bus U.S.market share).
OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND PARTNERS
Abel Avellan is the founder and CEO of Spacemobile. He successfully founded, operated, and sold Emerging Market Communication which provided inflight entertainment for airlines via satellite. 25 years in the space industry with 24 patents to his name. He came out of retirement after selling EMC for $550 million. He owns 43% of Spacemobile and controls 95.5% voting power. He pays himself the minimum wage allowed by law.
Key members of the executive team include: The CFO, Thomas Severson, who previously worked with Abel at EMC and has over 20 years of financial experience. The CTO, Dr. Huiwen Yao, has over 30 years experience in the space industry, previously working as the Senior Director of Commercial Payload/RF Engineering for Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman). Sriram Jayasimha is the Chief Scientist of Commercial Applications, he has 30 years experience, 42 peer reviewed publications, 21 patents, and was a fellow of the Center of Advanced Engineering Study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Vodophone owns 6%, leading MNO, diligenced Spacemobile for over a year before becoming an investor and customer. Invested in series B financing and PIPE investment. Vodopjone is the largest holder of cellular spectrum on the planet, 640 million subscribers, and has invested over 100 billion in their infrastructure.
American Tower (AMT) is the leading cell tower company in the world owns 3%. Rather than compete directly with AMT, Abel has partnered with them by making them an investor. AMT will provide the terrestrial gateway for some of the MNO partners.
Rakuten is an e-commerce company in Japan that also is a MNO and has been pioneering O-RAN is a software standard that makes cellular hardware cross compatible). Rakuten recently purchased Alitostar which makes O-RAN software that is used by Spacemobile for the purpose of virtualizing handsets. Rakuten owns 17% of AST.
Grupo Cisneros is one of the largest privately held media entertainment organizations in the world. Focused mainly on Venezuela, it includes: television networks, online media, and real estate.
ATT is a U.S. MNO who has been working with AST for technology development, providing test frequencies, and clearing regulatory hurdles. ATT will get exclusive rights to provide this service in the U.S.
All the above companies are pipe investors who are subject to a 1 year lock up from de-SPAC April 7, 2021. They are highly unlikely to sell given their mutually vested interest in the success of Spacemobile.
Samsung NEXT has also partnered with Spacemobile to help develop their cell phone technology.
Additional MNO partners include: Telecom Argentina, Telestra, Liberty Latin America, Tigo (Milicom International), Telefonica, MTN Group, Safaricom, Indosat, Vodacom, Smart (Philippines), Uganda Telecom (UTL), Africell, MUNI, Indoosat Ooredoo, America Movil, and Libtelco. These are MNOs from equatorial countries, the list will expand as phase 2 draws near.
INCOME STATEMENT, CASH FLOW, AND BALANCE SHEET
Since this Spacemobile is still in the early stages of development and deployment there is no material revenue yet.
Income for June 30, 2021 income statement was $2.77 million with a gross income of $1.66 million. Net income was -$19.98 million (due to engineering and research expenses).
Cash flow was $402.61 primarily driven by the business combination. Income and cash flow are irrelevant at this early stage except to measure cash burn due to satellite development.
Total assets ended at $482.65 million with $402.61 being cash and $38.66 million being BlueWalker 3. Total liabilities were $137.45 primarily due to a change in accounting practices of treating stock warrants as liabilities even though they are a non cash expense (this was $115.51 million). Total equity was $395.20 million. This is a very cash rich balance sheet with minimal cash burn.
Based on financial projections provided in the NPA investor presentation Spacemobile forecasts revenue is projected to be $9.6 billion and EBITDA to be $9.5 billion in 2027 with a 3 year CAGR of 107%. Cash flow should turn positive in 2023 depending on the launch schedule. The balance sheet is likely to be debt free due to the high margins and cash flow (Abel has mentioned self financing).
COMPETITION AND RISKS
There is really only one competitor which is Lynk Global, Inc. Although many people at first glance perceive Starlink, Kuiper, OneWeb, Iridium, Globalstar, OmniSpace, OQ Technology, and Swarm as competitors, in reality they are not. No other company has cracked the code of how to connect an unmodified cell phone to a satellite while offering 5G speeds.
Given the 1 trillion dollar TAM opportunity in space, satellite 5G, IoT, and broadband services; there is plenty of room for competition. The mobility market niche alone has been estimated up to 400 billion TAM by Lynk Global.
•Lynk Global, Inc.
Lynk is a LEO satellite operator still in the research and development phase. Founded by Charles Miller CEO/founder of Nanoracks in 2008, a cube sat manufacturer, Lynk plans to provide 5G coverage in partnership with terrestrial mobile network operators. According to their website, “Lynk’s affordable universal mobile broadband opens doors to full economic participation for populations who have been locked out due to geography, poverty, or gender—all because they lack a phone with connectivity to the Internet.” They were the first to send a text message from a LEO satellite to an unmodified cell phone in March 2020. Currently received seed funding of 20 million USD (primarily from: Steve Case, Revolution Rise CEO and AOL co-founder and Blazar Capital) and plans to raise additional funds from series A financing for the orbital constellation. To date, they have launched 4 prototype satellites from the international space station - an impressive accomplishment. Now focusing on a B2B model with mobile network operators looking for satellite coverage for network gaps and providing service where towers are unfeasible (same model as Spacemobile) and also focused on providing service for first responders. The first 1,500 satellites in orbit will provide primarily text messaging and voice services due to the favorable propagation characteristics of the sub 1,000 MHz frequencies and due to the small aperture size of their satellites 1 meter square phased array antenna. Although they have a similar business model, they will not be able to match the speeds and capacity of Spacemobile because it’s aperture size is 331 times smaller than a BlueBird1 antenna.
Lynk plans to launch its constellation 500 km high which will provide nearly the same latency as Spacemobile. Lynk has already launched its prototype satellite called Shannon. What we know about Lynk’s latest prototype is: “Shannon is five times the mass, seven times the power, twice the RF gain as Lynk #4” (original mass was said to be 25 kg) and 25% of the size of the LEO satellites being launched by OneWeb or SpaceX”. Miller mentioned that “One of Lynk’s innovations is that we use spectrum sharing, so you can do this over UHF, and there is no rain fade at UHF. The rain fade that people are used to happens in the mid-wave and millimeter-wave higher frequencies.” Ultra High Frequency bands (UHF) which is 300 MHz - 3,000 MHz will limit the amount of data that can be transmitted with terrestrial carriers. Think of your home router and only being able to use the 2.4 GHz signal with all your devices.
“Lynk should be able to offer continuous service worldwide after putting about 2,000 satellites into orbit, and full-fledged broadband services are scheduled to be offered after 5,000 satellites have been launched in 2025”, Miller said. Initial service will be mostly limited to 2G and eventually 4G and 5G service will be added, but the speeds and latency are not specified. Given Lynk satellites are UHF, not microwave compatible, it is unlikely to deliver true 5G speeds, even with 10,000 satellites.
Miller stated in regards to his size problem: “We can do decent-sized speeds with this satellite. Obviously, if we build bigger satellites, it will go faster.” He added, “We’re not doing Battlestar Galacticas—that’s an orbital-debris problem. We could grow this to a Battlestar Galactica if we wanted to, but we just think that’s crazy. But that’s a choice. We could build a massive, huge satellite in orbit—we’re experts in satellite technology, so we know what that would take—we just think that makes no sense at this time.” Realistically path loss is an issue which will either reduce the data received from the satellite or drain the phone's battery trying to upload. Similarly a smaller satellite has less surface area so a 20 kW antenna can’t be powered and beam steered to a user’s device.
•SpaceX
SpaceX is a satellite to phased array terminal provider competing with existing companies like Hughesnet. Their technology cannot communicate with a standard cell phone. In developing countries it is unlikely people will be able to afford a $500 receiving dish and computer to access the internet. It is much more likely they will buy a used smartphone for $10 - $20 and use an a la carte plan from Spacemobile. Remember there are billions of unconnected people due to the cost and inaccessibility of internet currently. In developed countries will use Spacemobile as well. SpaceX is launching BlueWalker3, so they are actually a partner.
•Omnispace
Omnispace is a planned mobile communications global hybrid network based on 3GPP standards. “Omnispace's unique mission of delivering satellite-based IoT communications direct to the device.” Partnered with Intelsat and Lockheed Martin. Ram Viswanathan, president and CEO of Omnispace, was CEO of Devas Multimedia, who pioneered the development of India’s satellite-terrestrial broadband internet and media services platform. Prior to that, he led the strategic partnerships as CSO and EVP of Business Development at Cidera. As WorldSpace’s SVP of Corporate Development, he helped formulated the successful U.S. joint venture, XM Satellite Radio. “Omnispace is fully committed to the vision of creating a new global communications platform that powers 5G connectivity directly to mobile devices from space,”
Omnispace has 2 primary target markets:
•Commercial applications include IoT asset tracking, agriculture, automobiles, supply chain, energy industry, drones, smart infrastructure, and aquaculture among others.
•Military/government applications include military IoT, first responders, global logistics, disaster relief, and mission critical command control.
So you are probably reading this thinking they sound like a competitor. They are trying to control their narrow band of 2100 MHz to provide for government and enterprise use because the capacity of their satellites is limited by the physical size of their cubesats. Capacity is limited also due to the fact their antenna is tuned to a narrow band. Just from a physics perspective in terms of gain, spectrum, and transmitting power their maximum capacity is limited to the needs of their target segment. Smartphones aren’t currently compatible with the frequencies Omnispace uses. Abel said that he knows Omnispace well and doesn’t see them as a competitor.
OmniSpace is working with Thales Alenia Space, Anywaves, Syrlinks, NanoAvionics (Spacemobile owns 51% of NanoAvionics) develop 2 prototype satellites to deploy in 2022, Omnispace is developing a narrow band IoT global hybrid network based on 3GPP standards. They plan to utilize small form S-Band operating at 2100 MHz. They plan to launch 200 small satellites in their constellation, so it can be inferred that this will not be high capacity due to the path loss limitation and limited transmitting power available to smaller satellites.
Omnispace is another spectrum play (like Globalstar) with capabilities similar to Lynk and AST Spacemobile, but limited by their antenna/satellites design of 2100 MHz. Their limited bandwidth restricts their overall data capacity. They are mainly focused on government and enterprise needs, not streaming media to consumers.
•Kuiper
Amazon/Kuiper is a copycat of SpaceX using similar technologies and satellite sizes. The same competitive case applies to them as SpaceX.
•Satellite IoT Service Providers
Swarm, OQ Technologies, OneWeb are all in the market of providing low bandwidth services for the internet of things. This is easily a service Spacemobile can provide at low cost, but these competitors cannot connect to a cell phone using ultra high frequencies needed for 3G speeds or higher.
•Iridium & Globalstar
They own premium spectrum and outdated assets. Globalstar is allowing text and phone calls to specialized devices and Iridium is offering basic IoT services. Globalstar’s primary business model seems to be diluting shareholders and leasing out its spectrum assets until its business model is disrupted or the CEO retires (think Sears business model). Iridium understands the value of low latency from LEO satellites, but has no plans for direct to unmodified smartphone connectivity. They will likely have a niche in the IoT market for asset tracking and low data demand applications.
Moat
•1,200+ patent claims and counting
•patents insured by Llyods of London
•highly technical solution
•first mover advantage (~5 years)
•exclusivity agreements with MNO representing 800 million subscribers (20% of market)
•high cost capital investment
•limited MNOs to work with and strategic partners who are also customers.
•key to Spacemobile’s advantages is keeping the phones antenna small and power consumption low by using large and powerful satellites.
Risks/Bear Case
•All satellite constellations have filled chapter 11 due to the historically high cost of launch and non-assembly line approach of production. (Should be noted the SPAC financing provided over $400 million which should more than cover phase 1 and the 17 million outstanding warrants can provide about $200 million cushion for cost overruns.)
•Execution risk of deployment failure or equipment failure
•Software failure
•Critical undetected manufacturing defect
•Extended launch delays
•Orbital collision risk (has worked with NASA to address this already)
•Dilution risk (CEO has mentioned non-dilutive financing is available & will be self funding around 2024)
•CEO dying
These risks could impair the share price or even force the company into bankruptcy. This company has been described as a binary stock, but that does not mean 50:50 odds. It is important to understand many companies have gone bankrupt deploying satellite fleets and delays are common in the industry.
TIMELINE AND MILESTONES
Mar/April 2022 - BlueWalker 3 launching on SpaceX falcon 9
End of 2022/early 2023 - Launch of first 20 satellites in the equatorial region (largest group of unconnected people 1.6 billion)
2023 - launch of 90 more satellites to provide global coverage
2024 - launch of 58 satellites to increase capacity
2027/2030 - launch of 168 satellites to further increase capacity
Anytime - Additional MoU with telecom partners
Anytime - Receiving money from the 5G Rural America Fund
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
Owns 51% of NanoAvionics, a leading satellite bus/propulsion supplier, which is growing at 300% annually and aims for 30% market share of the US market (projected market $3.5 billion in 2022). They offer both design services and flight operations. This equity position alone could be worth the current market cap of about $2 billion one day.
Utilizing existing technology meant for tower operators and assembly line production to keep BlueBird costs below $12 million.
David Marshack, former Terrastar engineer, Independently vetted AST Spacemobile for the pipe investors in addition to BlueWalker 1 validation.
Funding risks have been eliminated thanks to the SPAC funding. Non-dilutive sources of financing are available from Spacemobile partners. Once phase 1 is complete, banks will readily lend knowing the business model works.
Execution risked have been mitigated thanks to BlueWalker 1 available for iterative testing/development.
Abel has mentioned he is very confident in the array deployment during the latest earnings call.
Non-binding memorandums of understanding with Telefonica, Indosat Ooredoo, Telecom Argentina, Telstra, Millicom, Liberty Latin America and Smart (Philippines)
7 senators have written letters of support to the FCC for licensing. U.S. licensing is still pending, but is not necessary due to a loophole allowing satellite usage of a MNO’s spectrum in areas not covered by towers. The FCC’s concern would be satellites creating radio interference with existing ground communications. (FCC Report No. SAT 01509)
Launch costs have been falling by order of magnitudes and will continue to get lower. This and developments in phased array technology are the reason this is only now possible.
Governments around the world are making 5G coverage a national priority to connect rural areas and provide service during disasters. Some governments consider the internet to be a human right. In addition to public need, there are military applications, such as: jam/spoof proof GPS, secure lightweight communications, smart weapons, etc.
Member of WRC-23 Advisory Commitee which advises policy for the United States in preparation for the World Radiocommunication Conference.
Unnamed entity paid for BlueWalker3 development costs. Also mentioned around the same time, an alternate use for defense applications was found (likely high reliability GPS that can’t be spoofed).
FINAL THOUGHTS
It was my attempt to compile facts and knowledge from a multitude of sources in a fair and balanced way for investors to reference. I believe this company to be an incredible opportunity for investors who understand how big of an addressable market Spacemobile will serve and how fast that market is growing. No other company on the planet is poised to close the digital divide faster/cheaper than AST Spacemobile (and governments need this to happen). Eventually there will be a meaningful competitor because the revenue opportunity is so large, but it will likely be a duopoly with Spacemobile as the industry leader. This stock is not without risk and will continue to require investor patience. After spending months looking for a bear argument besides mainly execution risk (which has been mitigated), I have invested all of my discrecionary funds into $ASTS. I hope you read this as a skeptical investor, but given the chance that even half of this is true it would be worth your time to investigate further. I am very much open to hearing factual bearish arguments/concerns beyond what I addressed. I am not a financial advisor, please do your own due diligence.
SOURCES
Special thanks to the Reddit/Discord/Stocktwits communities for all their work including: CatSE, Anpanman, Spactori, TheKookReport, Winex, Commodore64, Kapuna, PeeLoosy, BigAssSatellitesFromHell, and many others.
•AST Spacemobile resources
https://www.reddit.com/r/ASTSpaceMobile/ (Go to the menu tab - this is the majority of the knowledge base)
https://npa-corp.com/wp-content/uploads/AST_SpaceMobile_Investor_Presentation_Public_12-15-20.pdf
https://investors.ast-science.com/financials-filings/sec-filings/
https://www.quiltyanalytics.com/company-coverage-2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUm3PyiLU0E
https://www.reddit.com/r/ASTSpaceMobile/
https://mobile.twitter.com/satorimind/status/1345030011389157376
https://investors.ast-science.com/static-files/69a8ada5-411a-4d89-af88-8ecab6dd808b
https://www.fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/1059-EX-CN-2020
•MIMO, Massive MIMO, and 5G resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transponder_(satellite_communications)
https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/1503.06854/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_site
https://www.5gradar.com/features/5g-towers-everything-you-need-to-know-about-5g-cell-towers
•Competition Resources
https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/
https://www.govtech.com/news/amazon-internet-program-project-kuiper-to-launch-satellite.html
•Market Resources
https://www.nsr.com/will-leos-create-a-trillion-dollar-industry/
https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/dataforecasts/mobile-traffic-forecast
https://www.statista.com/topics/779/mobile-internet/#topicHeader__wrapper
https://www.trustonic.com/opinion/how-can-cell-phones-help-bridge-the-digital-divide%e2%80%af/
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/5g-services-market-226908556.html
Submitted October 11, 2021 at 12:48PM by winpickles4life https://ift.tt/3iX9sDD
