Anpanman - 99 Mbps from Space: AST SpaceMobile Decimates the Competition

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. It will just basically come to your phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Everyone, thanks for joining. Uh, I fired up a space because this is a crazy development today. We just got this PR from AST SpaceMobile. Um, I wanted to provide some context around it and yeah, just talk about it. This is insane. So, um, for those that haven't seen, which I'm sure you have, um, AST just released this video. Um, it looks like there are some engineers out on a boat. where there's no coverage out in the Bahamas, and they're testing the speed. And keep in mind, this is the Block 1 satellite, right? So these are the 5 Block 1 Bluebirds, which are smaller. They're the previous generation, the first 5 test satellites that, you know, I think all the MNOs have been testing with. And yeah, they disclosed something pretty remarkable today. They achieved a download peak speed of 99 megabits per second. I mean, In actuality, it was 98.9, but we'll round up. So 99 megabits per second from space. And so this was to a direct standard mobile phone over international waters. And so there's no modifications, no new hardware. That's an important distinction because for Starlink, for example, you need to have one of, I think now there's like 20 or some odd phones that work with Starlink, but you need a new phone to work with Starlink. Whereas AST works, it's backwards compatible, it works with any phone. And so they achieved this tremendous accomplishment. And putting it into context, 99 megabits per second, that's in one beam cell. So let's say if there were other users in the area, they would all kind of have to share that speed, but that is tremendous for a given cell. And for comparisons, let's see. So BlueWalker 3, I think peaked out at like Maybe it was, I think it was like at 20 megabits per second. And so now we're achieving around 99 for Block 1. BlueWalker 3 was like a test, a case study, you know, a test satellite prototype. And then now Block 1 was, you know, slightly closer to production, but not obviously Block 2, which I'll talk about in a bit. But if you want to compare Block 1 satellite, that's 99 megabits per second. Compare that to Starlink's direct-to-cell satellites, which they've got 650, you floating out in space at very low Earth orbit. And so for those that don't know, Starlink had to lower the orbits of their satellite in order to make the link budget. So originally they were going to orbit at, I think it was like 500 kilometers in space, but they had to lower them so that they could achieve proper performance. So they had to lower them to 350. That's what happens when you have a shitty solution that's not engineered from the ground up to do this. But those satellites only deliver about, I think it's at peak, 7 megabits per second per cell, right? And it's more like 4 megabits per second based off of various publications and people who've tested the service. So it's truly just an SOS, you know, texting service. You can use some dumbed-down apps from WhatsApp and a few other providers. I think AllTrails just released an app as well, but that is truly narrowband. I mean, it's basically at the same level as what Globalstar is providing today, right? Which is what Amazon's acquiring and they're hoping for at some point in the future to transform it into some type of usable service. So going back to this, the other tremendous thing that was disclosed is that the, in this, you know, I guess it's the third sentence, they say next generation satellite expect to nearly double these speeds. So they're talking about the Block 2 satellites, which we have BB6 that's currently Orbiting. And then of course BB-7 didn't, unfortunately didn't make it to operations. But the next batch of 3 satellites, which are going to be launched in mid-June, which we recently learned about, that is the next generation of satellites, right? And so Abella talked about the fact that they were achieving somewhere over 160 megabits per second with Block 6. the Block 2 satellite. He kind of hinted at that at the launch. And so their expectation is that this next run of satellites are going to get to 200 megabits per second, which is astounding, right? And so we talk about AST having the lead versus Starlink. Starlink can do 4 to 7 megabits per second in a cell, and we can do 99 megabits with the previous generation. We're probably at around, as Abel talked about, 160 with the Block 2, the test satellite that's currently out in space, and that's expected to get to 200 as disclosed here. So what does that mean? Like, how does that compare to Starlink? So Starlink, I think Shotwell, who's the CEO of SpaceX, disclosed that the next generation of Starlink, which has a large phased array— funny how that works, how people are like, oh, you got to have small satellites and to do Broadband connectivity. And then AST came out with these large honking, massive solar arrays, large phased array satellites, and they're like, no, if you want to connect to mobile devices, you got to go big. And everybody poo-pooed the idea. But then funny enough, like everybody is shifting towards bigger satellites. Like Starlink is getting bigger and bigger because you need a large phased array in order to communicate to a small antenna down on Earth. And so the next generation that Shotwell is talking about where SpaceX is spinning up a new ASIC for that satellite, they're talking about that satellite will utilize the EchoStar spectrum, which that deal's going to close sometime at the end of next summer. And then they're spinning up this ASIC. They expect it to be available maybe in 2028, 2029. So Starlink, that next generation satellite is also dependent on Starship getting to commercial cadence. But that satellite's not going to be in production until, I don't know. I mean, based off of SpaceX time, and we all know all space companies' time, if they're saying 2028, you're probably looking at 2029 or 2030, and they're hoping to get to 150 megabits per second, right? And so this is for all the, I guess, all the bears out there or people who lament the fact that the company should be underpromising or overdelivering. doing it right now. Like, they, they've been talking about 120 megabits per second, um, is kind of the optimal speed, but now they're saying they're going to double, uh, to 200 megabits per second. And then, and then, you know, there's, there's a, there's a, a pathway, a roadmap to well beyond that, right? And so, um, this is absolutely huge news. Uh, the fact that the company PR'd, um, what You know, the Micron production facility, which looked absolutely amazing. You know, they're getting to scale there. I think the company has talked about getting pretty close to what they label as a hockey stick of production cadence. And so it seems like we're pretty close to that. So this whole idea of constellation constipation, as Cook talks about, it seems like we're coming to an end with that. And so that PR on Friday, And then this one right before earnings. I think we're in for some really interesting disclosures today during the quarterly update. So I, you know, for me, I come away from this as, you know, I think even with these disclosures, I'd be happy and, you know, see what the quarter brings. But it seems like the company wanted— wants to put out, like, they wanted to put out some real tangible evidence of their progress and One thing that dawned on me this morning is that they moved Micron production completely out of Odessa, right? And so they did that because they want to have more floor space in order to do payload integration and assembly and testing of the satellites. And so moving, getting that space and then standing it up and then putting all the machinery in there and then getting it working, like That actually took time. I don't think, I mean, some people are like, well, what are these guys doing? What, you know, they're obviously, you know, solving the stacking issue, but to actually push out Micron production to an entirely new facility, a clean space and get that up and running, like that takes time and you've got to take the equipment out of the old place and make, you know, obviously they bought more equipment, but that's a lot of Okay, someone's telling me that FirstNet dropped a PR video too. Okay, I'm gonna go look at that, I guess, after I stop talking. But that takes time. And this company, imagine like they're juggling multiple balls in the air. Like they actually, we internally have a few of their locations that they've built out, but there's well over like 6 production facilities that are leased and have either been fully stood up or in the process of being stood up. So For those people who in their idea just understand the commercial side of the business, this company's ramping up for defense too. It's just like Raytheon and all these other companies who ahead of Golden Dome got space and started putting up production and putting CapEx in the anticipation of awards. That's what this company's doing too. And so perhaps we'll learn a bit more about that as well. But going back to You know, Starlink, their next generation, they're hoping to get to 150 megabits per second. Like, where will we be? Right? And so Katzi pointed out very astutely this morning, which I tweeted kind of a hint at it, this whole idea of, you know, the Block 2 satellites are for low band, and then Block 3 satellites will be for mid band, which is going to leverage Legato, you know, any L-band and S-band spectrum that we're able to pieced together. And those mid-band satellites are going to provide like true capacity, right? Because with mid-band spectrum, you don't get the same coverage and propagation characteristics, but you can carry more data. And so that's going to bump up the capacity. And then eventually Block 4, which I remember back in 2020 or January 2021, or was it April when I talked with Abel? That was on the roadmap. Right? Like, so we're going to be doing low-band spectrum. We're eventually going to get to mid-band spectrum, and then we are going to get to C-band, right? And C-band is the stuff that the FCC is freeing up. It's going to have way more capacity in terms of carrying data, but you're going to need like a layered cake, right? You're going to need low-band for coverage, you're going to need mid-band for capacity, and then C-band for really like heavy-duty applications, right? And so when you get to C-band, Then you're talking about actually doing enterprise-level fixed wireless, pretty much. Not to mobile phones necessarily, but doing data to sending or providing broadband to data centers. And so the beauty of all this stuff is that with the architecture that they have and that these satellites are all coordinated by the carrier's network, you're able to do carrier aggregation, right? Or MIMO, where you could have 3 of these satellites hitting signal down to your phone and delivering 1 gigabyte of per-second data, right? And so this is like back in 2017, I think Abel talked about having MIMO, leveraging multiple satellites. And back then he was saying, you could get to theoretical speeds of 750 megabits per second, but I mean, I just threw a conservative target out there, let's say 1 gigabyte per second, but you could go even higher. And so with that in mind, then you're kind of reaching speeds that are approaching replacement level for the terrestrial network. Now, the ability to serve many users will never be through satellite. If you're in a very dense area, towers will always be the superior solution. But instead of just dead zones, like we're talking about creeping into suburban applications, you could do augmentation. Like let's say there's a Giants football game and the network gets inundated and there's no signal or you're not able to do any data, then the satellite, you could have some of the traffic offload— offloaded to satellite. And so Yeah, this is like pretty insane. And, you know, we're only talking about consumer applications. Obviously there's drones, internet of things. I mean, you name it, vehicles. Like, I think, you know, we've talked about this in the past, but regulators who, you know, in the future when you have these cars that are autonomous, they're always going to need to be connected, right? Because there has to be a kill switch from a regulatory standpoint. Like you can't just have independent autonomous vehicles doing their own thing. Like they have to be monitored and regulated, and so they have to be connected. And that means even in very desolate areas, or, you know, whenever I drive out to the Hamptons or go upstate, there's plenty of places where I don't get coverage, right? But forget that, like if you're coordinating with the network, you know, the MNO's network and you're on the beach on Long Island and those terrestrial, you know, the terrestrial service sucks. Like for these carriers, they can just like seamlessly weave in satellite coverage or turn off some of those towers, right? And so that's the beauty of the solution where, and this is the tough thing about Starlink is that Starlink is an entirely separate roaming network. And so I guess it was like a week ago I saw some of these posts of people who were saying that the Starlink network and the T-Mobile network conflict. And so they're always kind of fighting each other for signal. And so the service sucks, like, because the phone is confused and then that adds to the battery draining. Whereas this is a seamless and integrated solution where you're going to have seamless handoffs between satellite and the towers. And then oftentimes, you know, if the carrier's like, hey, you know what, we're not getting good coverage from this, This tower will just turn it off and then turn on the satellite for that specific coverage. And so that's the beauty of having a large phased array that can beam down fixed cells. So when the satellite's moving at 17,000 miles per hour, the cell stays fixed, right? And so your phone is talking to a specific satellite for, call it 8 to 9 minutes. Under Starlink, with a cell that's moving and it's regenerative, that phone is always having to look up a new satellite every 2 minutes, right? And the battery drain from that, the, you know, obviously the, there's a lot of friction there in terms of the actual usage. And so it's not seamless, right? And of course I talked about how the Threshold Network and satellite will fight for access to your phone, which is kind of dumb. But anyway, Yeah, this is crazy news because I think, you know, the company is quite conservative in kind of announcing these KPIs unless they're fully confident in them. So the fact that they're doing it now before the call, I think I'll reiterate what Kook was saying, like you want to front-load a lot of these videos which explain in great detail what has been accomplished before you have earnings call because you don't want to spend half the earnings call talking about, okay, well, we stood up this Micron facility and this is what we did. And you want to educate investors so that then you get to the even better stuff on the first quarter, or when there's Q&A from analysts, the questions have already been answered, right? Like my first question when I saw this, I was like, oh my gosh, they got 99 megabits per second. Like, and it's block ones. I wonder what they could do with Block 2. And then of course I read a little longer and I was like, oh, they're going to be able to double it. And so yeah, that's tremendous. And talking about the Micron facility, it was great getting in detail about the process that, the manufacturing process and getting some insight into that, which I think the cool thing is like, it's tangible, right? Like they've talked about the facilities and standing up production. And I think for any investor, it's sometimes it's hard to imagine that unless you're like a unless you work in production and operations, but it's kind of hard to imagine the gravity and the gravity of what that requires, right? And then you actually see it happening with employees there and it's just really cool because it makes it tangible and real. And so I think, you know, the other thing is you do realize like how important these employees are and just like, You know, learning to walk, crawl, walk, and then run. Like, it takes time to get these processes down, which, you know, Katze has talked about building the machine that makes the machine. And so they're going to get more and more efficient with that. And they're not going to make— the first time you do it, there's going to be a lot of learnings and you're going to think that you did it right the first time and there's going to be mistakes along the way. And then the second time you do it, you're like, oh, actually there's— I can remove a few of these steps or this was unneeded. Or you make a huge mistake and you're like, crap, we gotta go through it again. But this is the production hell that people go through in order to get to an optimal level of manufacturing. And I think eventually, like some of those manual processes that we saw, like eventually those will become automated, right? Like once they have a very good handle of what's required, then you can start bringing robots Robots meaning like arms, not droids, humanoids or whatever, but, you know, maybe in the future. But yeah, what an exciting time. But I think, yeah, it's, I think this, I just listened to Cook's space from last night. I started listening to it and then I fell asleep and so I had to listen to it again. And it is pretty, I just wanted to highlight this. I tweeted this out. I thought it was quite funny. He's Cook has a way with humor, which I do not. I don't think anybody does. But I thought it was funny when he said, you know, some dope on Reddit said that the first thing I learned at business school, and then Cook said, dude, that's your first mistake. You had to go to business school. And so whatever you learn from a professor in business school who's never run or owned or founded a business was the best business practice is to under-promise and over-deliver. And what he was saying is like, no, that's not true. And what I liked about his description is that he was saying, if you are a radical renegade of funk that is redefining an industry, the best practice is to be batshit crazy and inspire your team to do the impossible. Because even if you're delayed, that alternative is way the hell better than the alter— you know, than nothing happening, which is the impossible. And so he was saying like, you know, that's what Abel does. That's what Elon does. You have to rally a team. And so when you have a team that's killing itself, you know, executing against what are impossible goals, you will probably miss those goals. There'll be delays, but you can't then communicate internally an aspirational goal and then publicly be like, oh, I was just kidding. You know, no, you set ambitious goals internally and externally, right? Because as we've talked about before, like you've gotta manage suppliers, subcontractors, all these things, right? And so it's not like you can run 2 separate processes. You are going to go full bore after one goal, right? And if you're doing something that's impossible, that was like thought to be impossible, there are going to be delays, there are going to be hiccups along the way. And, but, you know, whenever you have a tech founder, a startup going to raise venture money, you don't give people, you know, this is my base case. I'm hoping to attack a market that's just, you know, $200 million. No, you're going to go out and give them the— your full vision and, and what you hope to achieve, right? And that's what people invest in. They, they want to invest in something that's extraordinary. And here, um, I think it's important to point out that like what we're doing was thought to be impossible, and but when you look at the actual results, we are accomplishing the impossible. And that's the beep. And so for people who are, who get upset about timelines, I mean, just think about it. Like the Block 2 satellite's going to be pumping out 200 megabits per second and Starlink, who's the ordained, you know, coronated king of space, they're hoping to get to 150 in 4 years. So like, yeah, we might be delayed by a few weeks, a few months, but is it going to matter? Probably not. We're really in a race against ourselves, right? And so I'm looking forward to the call today. I think there's going to be some interesting nuggets. I think the whole bearish argument around New Glenn not getting back to flight, like that's going to be— those guys are going to be quite disappointed. And also for Falcon 9, we've got, as Cook covered over the weekend, based off of our diligence, we've got quite a few of those lined up. And so as long as we get that production cadence going, which I think the company feels pretty confident of, skies are clear, man. Like we are at that point of escape velocity. And yeah, and I think all these disclosures are going to be rocket fuel, right? Because now It's funny, there's like this bear who, I won't call him out by name, but this guy who supposedly did, who helped design the directed device service for EchoStar, which is now defunct. But he was claiming that his design was better and that Starlink is better. And it's just funny because like clearly he's a paid consultant from ViaSat. But yeah, you have all these detractors and sometimes it's hard to kind of parse through the noise, but When you have days like this where the company is delivering real KPIs, yeah, it just makes you feel good. So anyway, I'll pause there and I'll conclude the space, but I just wanted to fire this up. I think in summary, the Block 1, our previous generation satellite, has achieved 99 megabits per second. Block 2, it is targeting, you know, they've disclosed nearly double that. So let's say 200 megabits. And that doesn't include the eventual mid-band constellation, which will leverage Legato and S-band spectrum. So, um, Katzi will probably have a better perspective of what the performance characteristics of what that satellite will be. And then, then moving on to the Block 4 satellites, which will be C-band, uh, which will give you a lot more data throughput. Um, and so yeah, a tremendous, tremendous disclosure today. Um, this makes me even more excited, which is kind of dangerous for the Q1, uh, update, But I think we have a lot to be excited about. And as I mentioned before, I'm making— I'm hoping that my schedule is clear for mid-June, mid to probably second half June for the next launch. And I think, you know, from little birdies, I think people should be clearing the calendars for early part of July for the second batch of launch. Because I think if things go according to plan, That could be in the cards. So, so we'll see.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Anyone?
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Anyway, thanks everyone for joining, and we'll talk again soon. Take care.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others. Post about it on social media. Media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. We're doing something very, very big, and I think we need to know it. We can really affect billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular mobile connectivity We can direct you from space to the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn their phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the NMO.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.