Scott Wisniewski at JP Morgan conference

[00:00:07] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: 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 C: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Sebastiano Petty and I cover the telecom cable and satellite space here at JPMorgan. I'd like to welcome Scott Wisniewski, President and Chief Strategy Officer of ASTS SpaceMobile. Scott, thanks for joining us.
[00:00:43] Speaker D: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: I think you're good. You're live.
[00:00:49] Speaker D: Can you hear me?
[00:00:50] Speaker C: All right.
[00:00:50] Speaker D: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Great. So, Scott, just to start, let's zoom out. As you sit here in mid-2026 with Bluebirds launching, commercial service activation approaching, and the government pipeline accelerating, where are you spending most of your time as president and chief strategy officer? And more broadly, what are your 2 to 3 highest priority objectives over the next 18 months as you transition from what has primarily been an R&D and manufacturing story into a scaled revenue-generating operating company?
[00:01:22] Speaker D: Thank you. And for those who don't know us that well, we were founded about a decade ago around the direct-to-device opportunity. That's what we do. That's our entire strategy. It's from space, of course, and we build our own satellites and we'll be operating them and selling capacity on them. But at its core, we are a direct-to-device pure play. And over the years, I met our founder in January 2019, but over the years telling our equity story, People always ask 3 questions. It was, does it work? Can you fund it? And how big will the market be? Or will there be a market? And that's our traditional private company questions that we still got even as a public company for a while. And we really retired those risks in 2023, 2024, and 2025. And so this year, yeah, you're exactly right. Traditional growth stuff, scaling stuff is where we are. And for us, if I were to say 2 simple things, one is Network deployment. The vast majority of the folks in the company are focused on exactly that, network deployment now for revenue in 2026 and 2027 and beyond. And then the second one is I think building the market out in the right way. This is a brand new service. It's a service that is at the very heart of connectivity. Remember, we all know the trends in connectivity. When I started my career in connectivity, there was a question post-dot-com bubble, What inning are we in? When is the expansion gonna end? And then of course, AI comes along and there's always something every couple of years. So for us, we're at the heart of connectivity. We can do coverage better than any terrestrial footprint by its very nature. And making connectivity work for our partners, the mobile network operators, and ultimately for the consumer mass market among other markets is our focus. So building out that market in the— is our second priority. Great.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: And let's address the news from last week. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile announced a proposed joint venture to extend mobile connectivity using satellite-based D2D technologies. You know, you guys put out a statement commending the announcement. Unpack this for us. What does this mean for ASTS in practice? Does it change your commercial positioning with the carriers? Does it accelerate Or maybe even complicate your path to service?
[00:03:41] Speaker D: So we really value the carrier relationship. We've organized the business, the technology, the go-to-market strategy. Everything we do really is about making connectivity better for the mobile network operators. And so you see that in where we've prioritized the company over the years. You see that in how we've built out the tech and even the network stack is organized with the RAN on the ground so the operators control it. So that's really been our focus. We share their spectrum, although we also have our own spectrum now. And that's always been the approach. And that's what's led us to have partnerships with nearly 60 operators globally, approximately 3 billion subscribers amongst them. We count many of them as investors. 15% of our cap table is strategic investors, like, well, including AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Google, American Tower, Bell Canada, TELUS in Canada, Rakuten out of Japan. So we've prided ourselves on being the partner of choice for this market as they develop it and develop it as a growth area for them, not a vendor-style cost center, but a growth area. And so it was 2 years ago that we were able to bring Verizon into our network in the United States, putting them together with our historical partner, AT&T. And we see this new announcement this week very much in the same vein. It's how do the operators get organized in the United States around what is a very important strategic and growth opportunity and innovation opportunity for them and for us and for the citizens of the United States. And so we see it in that vein. And so, yes, we're supportive. It's a way to expand the market even further in the US. And, and we're going to continue to push for that in a very meaningful way.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: I mean, does it— maybe think about the other side of the coin. Does it, does it validate the market and does it bring you closer And maybe help us think about, I mean, does it diminish the moat around your controlled spectrum?
[00:05:37] Speaker D: Yeah. So our strategy has always been to be carrier neutral. We did develop some exclusivities over the years who were early investors in us, and that was helpful. But for us in the long run, we were always gonna be carrier neutral. It's a great strategy. You see it across the telecom sector, right? And So that's always been our approach. It's just happening a little sooner here in the US than expected, which is a good thing. In terms of our moat, I mean, we have, you know, when you think about LEO network deployment, LEO satellites, LEO constellations, we're gonna be the second one to get to the finish line without going bankrupt first. This is an impossible task. We have developed over the last decade, the plan, the technology, These are the largest satellites ever deployed in low Earth orbit. We have the spectrum that backs it up. We have the model, we have the first mover advantage, we have the partnerships. And so making ourselves relevant to our customer with great tech and a great service and a solution is always what we had to do when we got outta bed in the morning. So there's really no difference there. We always were ready for the competition. And so I think there'll be a healthy market over time, but in the near and medium term and maybe even the 5 to 10-year term, you know, this is gonna be a very growth market.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:52] Speaker D: oriented situation where we're going to have a leadership role.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: I think Chairman Carr of the FCC just put out something today about 3, right, scale D2D providers. Obviously with Amazon's announced agreement to purchase Globalstar, has anything changed in terms of, you know, we'll get into some of the commercial agreements in a moment, but the tone of conversations changed at all since that splashy announcement?
[00:07:14] Speaker D: No, not really. I don't think there's an a network operator globally that doesn't want to work with us in some way. Those conversations have increased with depth and breadth every month since I've been around the company as we've de-risked the approach. So we are partnered with many, many operators around the world. Really very few are missing other than outside of China and Russia. And that's the same question. The same question they have is how soon can I offer service to My subscribers, and so no, we haven't haven't seen the tone of the conversation change really. And and again, I just want to highlight this is a very challenging problem to solve. It'll it'll take a long time for folks to ramp up. I'm sure if big players with big scale want to go after the opportunity, they can, and they they probably will, as you do with see with big opportunities. But you know, importantly, we have a we feel like we're the partner of choice for operators. We're extremely well capitalized to get after our initial opportunity here. It's happening. now. And we have a great tech solution that is, again, these are the largest phased arrays ever deployed in low Earth orbit. This is not a trivial thing, and we've been at it for years, and that moat feels good to us.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Good.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: So that's a great segue. I want to turn to the deployment. So you're targeting approximately 45 satellites in orbit by year-end through a combination of Blue Origin, SpaceX, with your next launch, BlueBird, 8, 9, and 10 on Falcon 9 expected in mid-June. So with, you know, with New Glenn still grounded following the Bluebird 7 upper stage anomaly, you know, maybe, you know, how many launches do you need now from now through December to hit that 45? And I guess what's the margin of error if Blue Origin's return to the pad slips?
[00:09:05] Speaker D: Yeah, and so to remind everybody, our 45+ guidance on satellites in orbit basically gets us to full commercial service in the initial markets that matter, US and a few others. And that's always been our strategy. We set our target for this year to do that. We reiterated that target even after the loss of our satellite, the one satellite on the prior launch, but we feel really good about that. And really, as we think about business risk, the value in LEO is its resiliency and the fact that we have production through Satellite 33 at our factory right now. We just shipped 2 more satellites yesterday to the Cape. And so there's a lot of resiliency in it. And so yes, we lost a satellite last month. We'll be back at the pad next month in a 60-day turnaround. So it's a tribute to our launch provider agnostic strategy. We've built these things so they can go on any launch vehicle. We, 2 years ago, set up a pretty resilient plan between Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ISRO to get those 13 launches up. And in order to meet our target this year, it's pretty simple math. We get about 2 to 3 times more satellites on Blue Origin rocket. That's one of the reasons why we signed them up as our biggest partner. And we need about a handful of Blue Origin rockets and a handful of Falcon 9 or equivalents. And so we feel really good about that timeline. And frankly, if it slips a month or 2 or 3, you know, that doesn't really impact the NPV of the of the company. Importantly, it's very important to our customers and it's very important to us, and time is money. But for us, this is happening. There's an inevitability to it. And being vertically integrated with a couple of good launch partners gives us that confidence.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: And then I think we spent a little bit of time, you just touched on it being launch vehicle agnostic, right? You kind of talked about it on the call. I mean, how much flexibility do you necessarily have with Vulcan? I mean, can they absorb more of that capacity? Is that something that'll take time?
[00:11:03] Speaker D: Well, we have relationships with all the heavy launch providers globally. We've signed big contracts with Blue Origin and SpaceX. We had a launch recently on ISRO as well, and we have referenced on our public analyst calls that we've signed other agreements as well, not with firm launch dates yet, but other agreements are in the works. So I think for us, it's important to have the flexibility and it helps de-risk the plan a little bit. But we think the launches that we have contracted and ones that we'll get for later in 2027 on top of what we've already contracted, we feel really good about that. And we feel good about our partners. Like I said, we're gonna be back at the launch pad in 30 days with SpaceX. And with Blue Origin, we're very optimistic about their return to the pad soon.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: And then moving to the manufacturing side, you've disclosed phased arrays through Bluebird 28 and advanced assembly through Bluebird 33. So at 6 fully assembled satellites per month, roughly, is the factory now the easy part of the equation, or is there still yield testing, composite structure challenges that could create variability in the output? Quarter to quarter.
[00:12:23] Speaker D: So one of the great things about being based in Texas is we didn't need a 5-year plan. We just started building and you get the consents later. So that's kind of what we've done is we've had success raising capital the last 3 years. We've built and built and built. And most recently we just opened another 100,000 square foot dedicated payload facility. So this is in Midland, it's about a mile down the road and it just makes microns, which are the active payload on our satellite. And that's great. There's a video of it online. It's got a great energy to it. It's very professional. The yield has improved. There's still some improvements to be had on production yield, but that's just time and money. So I'd say our manufacturing has really grown up a lot in the last 18 months, and that's exciting to see. And there's still some things to work out as we scale, and in particular, as we try to jam as many satellites as possible onto our launch partners' rockets. But we're in great shape. And it's really a question of, you know, do you get one additional satellite here or one additional satellite there? It's not a threshold question. So getting to what we need for the network, we're there. And the manufacturing supports it. I don't know that I'd say it's easy. It's still where a lot of the company is focused, but we're getting it right. And you see that with the satellites we've deployed over the last couple years. We had 7 satellites deployed successfully in low Earth orbit, and deployed means opening up. And these are the largest satellites ever deployed in low Earth orbit for commercial use. So it's a big accomplishment. We're 7 for 7, and we hope to be continued success. But I'd say manufacturing is one of those things that's in our 4 walls and in good shape.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: Going back to something you touched on earlier, but with, I think, New Glenn, the next New Glenn launch will carry 4 satellites and then ramping towards 8 And so I guess help us think about, you know, as you stack these tuna cans in there, I think we've talked about in the past, are there, you know, is there engineering or regulatory, you know, gating factors or, you know, I guess help us think about the timeline to get to, you know, the quote unquote fully stacked capacity.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: Yeah, we expect to do that over the course of 2026. So for us, part of our strategy for being launch vehicle agnostic was having a flexible design. So essentially what we do is we stack tuna cans. So you attach the bottom tuna can to the second stage of the rocket. You stack them and if you start to get too tall, you have to reinforce the ones on the bottom. But otherwise it's meant to be pretty simple. You can put 3 in a Falcon 9, you can put 4 growing to 8 on New Glenn, you can put 5 on our Vulcan, you can put 2 on ISRO, 3 in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and on and on down the list, 5 on an Ariane 6. So there's a lot of different options we have and that's similar to how others have pursued launch vehicle agnostic strategies. And so how does that play out over time? There's a little bit of a matching game with Blue as they're growing into their performance plan. They've successfully now landed 2 boosters, which is an incredible feat, being 2 for 3 on their 3 New Glenn launches, the 2, the last ones being successfully landed. And that'll support a pretty rapid cadence going into the end of 2026 and into 2027, which is fantastic. And beyond that, You know, it's about doing normal vehicle upgrades and for us, you know, tightening our belt where necessary in order to maximize the yield and performance on the expensive rockets. Great.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Now let's shift back to the commercial ecosystem. You mentioned you have nearly 60 MNO partners covering 3 billion subscribers with definitive agreements announced. AT&T, Verizon, STC, others. As you sit across the table from operators today, I guess, has the tenor of conversations changed? Now that you have FCC authorizations, a fully funded balance sheet, and demonstrating 100 megabits from orbit?
[00:16:14] Speaker D: Yes. So I'd say we've always had this great relationship and it was started on the technology side, frankly, which is a really great place to start because at the end of the day, we're a great mousetrap for them. We can deploy a digital tower anywhere in their network in any frequency and up to 4 of them simultaneously. You don't want to treat it like a trading floor, but you can do network planning. And if they have frequencies that they're not using in certain regions, you can deploy them. And it's what a great mousetrap, right? And we translated that similar closeness through the business side on the go-to-market strategy to help them and have them bring them into the tent to be investors with us to help us build this. And so that's been a successful dynamic and we're I'd say we've got good relationships both in the middle of these organizations and at the top. And you need that CEO and C-suite alignment for really strategic stuff that's long-dated, right? That doesn't have a quarterly payoff. And so that's been really important to our strategy. And yeah, de-risking with capital, de-risking with spectrum, de-risking with the technology, the speeds, the partner-first approach, those are all great. And regulatory too. We are flagged. We took the decision a couple years ago to flag our network in the US, which hadn't previously been done, but based on steps the FCC took to warm up to space and directed device in particular, we reflagged, and that's played out really well for us. And even Chairman Carr was speaking on CNBC today pretty favorably about us. So we've had a good relationship with the US regulatory environment. It's only gotten better and better. We just received our full commercial authorization from the FCC a couple weeks ago, which is fantastic. And yeah, that has all kinds of good follow-through network effects for the rest of our partners. And we're trying to get them serviced as soon as we can.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: I think you mentioned expecting on the call, you mentioned expecting additional MNO agreements with quote unquote increasing velocity through 2026. I guess you probably, some of the similar things you kind of just touched on, but what's driving the acceleration in the partner signings and As you think about this next wave of definitive agreements, is this from conversations, primarily from conversations with existing MOUs within your, you know, 50+ partners, or is this, you know, new, entirely new relationships that were outside your ecosystem previously?
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Right. So we're very proud of the partnerships we have and the ecosystem we've built. And even if we just develop that, that'll be an enormous win for the company, right? So there are still some companies that, we don't have formal partnerships with that, you know, we hope to bring to the fore in the coming months and quarters. But in general, we have this huge funnel of opportunities to develop. And I sometimes joke that I'm ruined for any sales job in the future because we really just have an incredible vibe with the operators. You know, we have something that's really good for them. It's set up for them to succeed and it's innovative and it's new tech and it's better for their customers. And it, we even bring spectrum to the table now. So. I think the challenge is just getting going. We're scaling, we're a growth company. We've really invested in our commercial and telecom operations teams over the last 12 to 18 months on top of our space organization. We're kind of like a manufacturer and a telecom operator in one, 2 different companies almost. So we've been scaling that. We've been continuing to develop our relationships. And every day we get closer to commercial service drives a different dynamic as MNOs are planning their budget cycles. They're thinking about what 2027 is going to look like. And of course, this is a very topical piece in the telecom industry and the wireless industry in particular. So I'd say just continued momentum, continued drumbeat, commercial service on the horizon and broadband. Because of course we've seen some initial commercial plays in direct-to-device and they've been—
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:14] Speaker D: Emergency or text-based. So the idea of bringing broadband, which has always been our strategy, broadband first, broadband only, to be able to bring 100 megabits per second to a phone is an incredible thing. So it's really, you know, I joke sometimes that, you know, texting versus broadband, it's not apples and oranges, it's apples and aircraft carriers. You know, these are very, very, very different things, you know, not even a little close. So it's really exciting and it's a big thing to bring forward and we just gotta execute.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: So turning to the revenue trajectory, you reiterated, you know, 2026 guidance of $150 to $200 million with first quarter coming in at, you know, just shy of $15 million. And you described the 2027 opportunity as approaching $1 billion. So pretty significant ramp. Bridge that gap for us. How much of the 2027 target is underpinned by existing contracts and minimum commitments? Versus, you know, or more dependent on commercial service activation and subscriber uptake?
[00:21:18] Speaker D: All right, so there's a lot there. We were built as a commercial service for the commercial market, for the consumer market. And that was our story for a long time. About 3, 4 years ago, we started talking about the US government opportunity and being able to deploy the largest architecture in space today amidst the spending on the government side and the Golden Dome project is just perfect timing. I don't know what to say. And it's a great backdrop. And so for us, we now have a commercial story, we have a US government story. Both are great stories. Both are gonna feed into our revenue opportunity in the near term. I'd say in the next 1 to 3 years, you know, we don't have better guidance than we expect it to be about half and half. But either one could dramatically outperform. And so those are both great opportunities for us to pursue. So what you've seen from us last year, hitting the high end of our revenue guidance, and then this year putting new revenue guidance in place, it's kind of like practice, I would say. You know, it's not our service revenue, it's getting going with 10 different use cases on the US government side, really only 3 contracts of some size so far. And on the commercial side, we're deploying network, we're getting them to, build the ground infrastructure that'll feed their service and allow them to control this in their market. And so it's kind of practice revenue, but it's good practice. And we did hit the high end of our guidance last year. We expect to do well and are confident in our guidance this year. I would say we kind of expect to grow quarterly sequentially into that $150 to $200 million guidance during 2026. And that's all pre-commercial service revenue. And then in 2027, yeah, I think Again, another big kind of 50/50 opportunity across government and commercial with opportunities for upside against both. And you mentioned how is this underpinned by existing contracts? So our guidance for this year, more than half of what's left is already contracted in the backlog and the rest is spoken for several times over by our pipeline. And then next year we have signed up a couple of take-or-pay style long-term minimum revenue commitments. So we have a total of $1.2 billion of cumulative minimum revenue commitments that will likely form the vast— a very small portion of our overall revenue opportunity over the next couple years, but still nonetheless shows that operators are putting their contractual commitments behind us. And as long as the network gets in orbit, that revenue comes in as a minimum.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: And so on that, you talked about, again, the potential upside from the commercial service revenue. And I mean, does that contribute meaningfully in 2026, or should we think about that more as the upside case in 2027?
[00:24:11] Speaker D: In terms of that backlog I quoted?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:15] Speaker D: Well, that's over the life of our contracts. So we've signed 2-year agreements, 5-year agreements, 6-year agreements, and And it's one 10-year agreement. So it's not back-end loaded or anything like that. It's kind of pro rata across those various terms and tenors. But you can think of over $100 million contribution in each year out of the gate for sure.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Got it. And then on the government side, yeah, again, definitely a bigger part of the narrative than a few years ago. And you've described use cases spanning from tactical communications, non-communications capabilities, Golden Domes. You have Halo Europa with billions of annual revenue potential in aggregate. So I guess frame for this audience, I guess, where are you in the contracting cycle? Are you still primarily in the development and testing phase, or are you approaching the inflection into programs of record with multi-year recurring revenue?
[00:25:16] Speaker D: So we are doing testing in orbit today with the satellites in orbit for multiple government opportunities, revenue-producing opportunities with the US government. The way to think about US government opportunities, they kind of go through a cycle where they have a phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 contract. And then ultimately, you know, the pot of gold is usually a program of record. That's a 5 to 10 year thing with, you know, a pretty sizable revenue opportunity per year. And so that is what we're chasing across what was said about 10 different use cases between comms and non-communications. Non-communications for satellites like ours mean a lot of things, but one of those things we mentioned on our call was radar. And these are, we can do things with a big satellite that you can't do with a small satellite. That's the core of it. And these are the biggest phased arrays ever deployed. in low Earth orbit. And so if you put up 100 or 200 of them, you can do a lot of incredible things. And so our network is dual use, which means our commercial satellites can also support government applications. We also have the ability to build modified satellites that have government use only, of course, if that's the way the US government wants to go. So we see a lot of opportunity. And of course, the backdrop here is the the biggest spending on space since the '60s. The backdrop is incredible. The Space Force budget just doubled to about $70 billion is what's in front of Congress now. There's a number of opportunities related to what we do that are very sizable. And, you know, for Golden Dome, there's a lot of pressure on how to get something out in this administration that's of value for our country. And to do that, On any short timeline like that, you had to start 5 years ago. And fortunately we did.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: And so let's pivot to spectrum, which is foundational to the long-term value of the business. You have 45 megahertz of L-band in North America, 60 megahertz of S-band priority rights outside of North America, layered on top of, you know, was it 1,100 megahertz of MNO shared spectrum globally? So I guess walk us through the activation timeline for your controlled bands. What regulatory approvals remain outstanding? What's the capital required to bring these live commercially?
[00:27:40] Speaker D: Spectrum is a real fascinating investment asset because, you know, that's scarce on the one hand, and on the other hand, once you buy it, you have to pay money to bring it into use, right? And that's the trouble a lot of people run into is building a network is very expensive. If you wanna activate a new band in the United States, for instance, that could be $5 to $10 billion of ground equipment to put in place. So for us, the key to our strategy, both picking up the L-band about a year and a half ago, and then also pursuing the S-band, is that we were building the satellites anyways. So the marginal cost for us was relatively low on the build-out side. And so that allowed us to move fast with L-band before the direct-to-device market got eager to buy those bands for direct-to-device. And we moved and we now have a long-term agreement, 80-year lease to—
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:28:34] Speaker D: 45 megahertz in the United States, which is the majority of the L-band, which is one of the 2 frequencies you can use for direct-to-device. And we have it in the most valuable market in the world. So that's a huge anchor position for us, very similar to the one that SpaceX went and acquired from EchoStar. And so for us, it's about, one, getting the deal done, which we did. 2, our last thing is really regulatory approval with the FCC. And on CNBC today, Chairman Carr said, you know, and AT&T, AST already has their spectrum. So he referenced the L-band that we have acquired and that's in his hands for approval. And so we have to build satellites for it, of course, and that's our core strategy, what our company can do. And then we need to get into phones. So these bands are in phones a little bit right now, but 2027 is when it starts getting into into most phones in a big way, new phones, and then it's gotta work itself into the market. So that's a couple-year lifecycle. So we'll be deploying network in 2027 and beyond. That'll be in phones starting in 2027 and beyond. And we'll have the ability to pair that new spectrum band and new spectrum access with the spectrum that we have from the operators. And so our core strategy from the beginning of the company was to partner with the operators, And have a revenue share on their spectrum because we definitely couldn't afford it when we started. So that's how we do it. And so today we have, you mentioned 1,100 megahertz, that's low band and mid band. We have most of those frequencies on our satellite network. We'll be able to use those with operators' permission, of course, our partners through a revenue share. And then we'll be able to bring to bear our owned and controlled frequencies over time to bring more spectrum to bear, better services, more subscribers. And really increase the value of the direct-to-device service opportunity.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: So quick follow-up. Do you think the JV announced by the big 3 carriers in the US helps the proliferation of devices in the ecosystem in the US?
[00:30:34] Speaker D: I think we're already on that track. You know, that is what the device manufacturers want to enable, the frequencies that their MNO partners want to enable, that'll sell more phones. So I think there's a lot of momentum there, but But the JV is doing, enables a lot of the things that we were already helping enabling, like device availability, spectrum pooling, which was a key rationale for how we brought AT&T and Verizon together 2 years ago. So I think on the margin, but I think we're already in a good place there.
[00:31:01] Speaker C: And do you, should we, and should investors expect ASTS to remain opportunist— opportunistic about acquiring additional spectrum assets, whether it be L-band, S-band, otherwise?
[00:31:14] Speaker D: So we really like our spectrum position. We were very fortunate to get our MSS spectrum when we did, and we're going to continue to pursue S-band opportunistically around the world with various countries where it makes sense. L-band is pretty heavily utilized around the world. That's why it was so great to get the piece of it that's unused in the United States and Canada. In terms of S-band, It's not really used around the world. Europe has allocated it. The license is coming up. It hasn't been well used. Our partner in Saudi Arabia actually purchased it themselves, and we hope to enable that in the near future. And so it's a country-by-country thing. It's a regulatory thing. We're going to make our case market by market. But for us, we love our position in spectrum, but more spectrum is better, right? And so we want to bring the best amount of services we can. And we'll be opportunistic, but our approach is primarily to partner. You're not gonna see any expensive acquisitions by us.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: So you talked about European S-band. You have a partnership with Vodafone, a joint venture, Satellite Connect Europe. I mean, update us. I mean, where are we in that process? Any update?
[00:32:26] Speaker D: Sure. So Vodafone's one of our biggest partners, early investors. They've invested 3 times. They hold over a billion of stock in us now. And we have a 5-year mutual exclusivity with them in Europe and Africa. And we formed a joint venture in Europe to help us build out the ground infrastructure in a pooled way that brings access to more operators, manages the closed borders, which is a unique thing in Europe versus the US or other markets, and also make ourselves available for spectrum allocations. And so We formed the joint venture about a year ago. It's been staffed up to about 20 folks. It's very much European operated, European run. It's got a Europe team. And I sit on the board as does 2 of us from AST and 2 of us, 2 from Vodafone. And it's a really good story. It's a European operated solution for getting direct to device. And they've had great success. Just at Mobile World Congress 2 months ago, they signed up about 10 partners that they're developing. So I think it's been a good strategy for us and we've got a good team there.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: Let's close with the balance sheet and path to profitability. You ended the first quarter with approximately $3.5 billion in cash. You said that you're fully funded for over 100 satellites with no plans for additional convertible debt. At the current spend rate, how should investors think about the glide path to free cash flow breakeven? And does that require, you know, does that require you to get to the $1 billion in revenue in 2027 to be substantially achieved, or can you get there maybe on a little different route trajectory?
[00:34:03] Speaker D: So we haven't talked much about our operating model, but it's a really nice operating model, the financial model. So the idea of building a constellation has been a dream really since the '90s. You know, it's a dream that's only been successfully executed on once, but if you get to scale with a product that's desired and the model is quite attractive. So you build your network, you can continue to invest in it and refresh it every, over 7 to 10 years. It becomes a maintenance CapEx stream. It's very high margin because all the money is upfront in CapEx. So the satellite industry, when it's been functioning well and had growth, you see margins in excess of 80% on the EBITDA line for wholesale stuff like what we do. And that's how we expect this to play out. We've got a fixed cost base of, call it $300 to $400 million of OpEx a year. And on top of that, you bring in the revenue and you support your maintenance CapEx. So that billion-dollar number is in no way tied to a need for free cash flow breakeven or anything like that. We'll be operating free cash flow positive well before that. And it's all about building the structure of the market in the right way. so that you're capturing the value that you're delivering to the consumer or the US government, whoever the customer is, and ultimately managing CapEx on a growth basis. So this is, you know, NPV-positive growth CapEx decisions that we can make in the future, and we'll make those with better insight when we get there. But at the moment, we see a really attractive financial model informed by how we've built the business, and we're on the cusp of bringing in that revenue. And, you know, we'll be operating free cash flow positive well before we reach $1 billion in revenue.
[00:35:39] Speaker C: Great. I think that's right on time. So great place to end it. Thanks, Scott, for joining us.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: Thank you, Sebastian.
[00:35:54] 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, 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.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this technology we can really affect billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular mobile connectivity directly from People will just basically turn on 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.
[00:36:51] Speaker D: Listen. Mmm, waffles.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.