Had a conversation with someone at my company who was a senior tech leader at @SpaceX . Has worked closely with Elon, a real smart guy. When I brought up $ASTS he had never heard of it. His response was basically - @SpaceX will have more satellites and they'll figure it out. That reaction is exactly the problem. And I think a lot of people watching the roadshow this week have the same confusion. So let me break it down again for anyone interested in $SPCX
@Starlink and $ASTS are not in the same business.
Starlink is a broadband internet service. Dish on your roof. $120/month. Competes with Comcast and fiber. 10,400 satellites in orbit. V3 coming with 1 Tbps per satellite - monster specs. This is what the IPO is really about and SpaceX is crushing it here. No debate.
Starlink Mobile is their D2D add-on. 650 satellites. Currently texting and basic data on T-Mobile's band. 3-7 Mbps outdoors. Their V2 D2D satellites promising 150 Mbps haven't launched yet. Their owned 65 MHz mid-band spectrum - current phones don't support it. Commercial launch mid-2027 at the earliest.
$ASTS is carrier broadband from space. 98.9 Mbps already proven. Operates on carrier low-band 700/800 MHz - the same frequencies your phone already uses. Works indoors. No new hardware. No new phone needed. All 3 US carriers formed a JV around it.
The part my ex-SpaceX colleague didn't understand - and I think most people watching the roadshow won't either is that more satellites don't solve the spectrum problem. SpaceX has zero low-band spectrum. None. No path to get it. Low-band is what goes through walls, buildings, and cars. That's physics. You don't iterate your way around physics no matter how many satellites you launch.
SpaceX will dominate broadband internet from space. That market is theirs. The carrier D2D market - where your existing phone connects to a satellite through your existing carrier on your existing plan - that's where $ASTS leads. And the carriers themselves are telling you this by forming a JV and investing equity.
Two different products. Two different markets. Both can win. But only one is a $40B company in a market SpaceX themselves sized at $740B.
$ASTS 🛰️
@Stonefoxcapital Judging by your consistent bashing of $ASTS for years, I would hate for anyone to take anything you say seriously. I hope you don’t look after anyone else’s money.
@aymenretibi ??? The launchpad wasn’t ASTS. In fact their next few launches are already scheduled to be falcon 9’s, with the first one 2 or 3 weeks away
@LuckyStuey Scott sold like 3% of his shares. You think that’s a catalyst to drive the stock down enough to buy a leveraged short position? This is gonna age so well when ast turns green today..
@LuckyStuey Scott sold like 3% of his shares. You think that’s a catalyst to drive the stock down enough to buy a leveraged short position? This is gonna age so well when ast turns green today..