Anpanman - The Apple Alpha: FCC Filings and the SpaceX Threat

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. We 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.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Everyone, thanks for joining on a very volatile morning of liquidations. Yeah, we've got Bitcoin breaking $70,000. Perhaps Ethereum will fall under $2,000. And so what that means is— Obviously, there's people that probably have cross-holdings in high-beta names, but they also own some crypto, whether that's retail investors, but also institutions. And so when you have these mass liquidations of people having to reduce leverage, it typically hits all risk assets. And we saw a bit of factor movements yesterday with momentum growth, you know, all the big high beta or winning areas getting hit pretty hard versus value, dividend yield, those types of names, you know, staples, consumer staples. And so, um, yeah, this is just part of the macro picture of, um, risk liquidations going into crypto, which is then spilling to other areas. Um, I did talk about yesterday about how, uh, this is healthy for the market, um, at least on for, for stocks, uh, because for some of these sectors that have performed quite well at the beginning of the year, you're going to have some periods of consolidation. And yeah, so this is not anything out of the ordinary. It is interesting though that we, you know, crypto is now at a point that is similar to when I guess Donald Trump won, you know, the presidency. And so the entire gain for crypto has been completely wiped out. And so, you know, for those who are new to crypto, perhaps they haven't experienced it. I was I've invested in crypto for a number of years. 80%, 90% drawdowns are a feature, not a bug. I mean, those things happen. And for those who are involved in it, you know, I guess you're now at a 50% drawdown. It could get worse, but then perhaps, I mean, even I this morning was thinking, okay, what level would it have to get to for me to perhaps get some exposure again? And I think rule of thumb, at least historically, perhaps that's not going to be as bad because there's so many institutions involved now. But maybe a drawdown to 60, 70% is when you might start buying some of that stuff. Some of that stuff meaning, I would say blue chips like Bitcoin or Ethereum. But anyway, I'm not here to talk about crypto. I only mentioned it because it obviously is having a pretty big impact on the market. What I am here to talk about is the latest news with Apple, and then the news out today from Reuters, which has had somewhat of a recent checkered history about some of the news that they've reported. But I think they're on point with this news. But yeah, the news that SpaceX is looking to potentially introduce a phone eventually and also service, and I can talk about what that service might look like and What some of the challenges are, but clearly that's a shot across the bow. It's it's like the Avengers Endgame, where if you're Apple, Google, Samsung, any global MNO, you're you should be shaking in your boots right now because Elon Musk is coming after you. And so I think the strategic value for AST has gone up markedly, and it may obviously it's not reflected in the market today, just given the risk off. But I think as people digest this, it will become increasingly clear that the need, the strategic need for AST SpaceMobile just shot up today with that confirmation. And once it becomes formalized, I'm sure during the SpaceX IPO, it'll be one of the selling points that they'll talk about with institutions and the cat will be out of the bag. So let's go back to the Apple testing news. And why that's important. So, Katzy, in his infinite wisdom and due diligence, he uncovered these FCC filings where Apple specifically is testing its phones for supplemental coverage from space. And so in these filings specifically, the hints are all there, the puzzle pieces. You know, the company is testing its phones for satellite connectivity in the 600 MHz band, 700 MHz, 800 MHz. And then the PCSG block. And why that's important is that there's only one broadband satellite operator that is in the 700 and 800 megahertz bands, and that is AST SpaceMobile. And the companies that they're working with are AT&T, Verizon, and FirstNet. And so for those that remember, I guess it was like Last year, maybe in Q3, or maybe it was over the summer, the information leaked, supposedly secret news that Apple and Starlink were testing with one another. And as we all said back then, you know, that's not really news. Apple should be testing its devices with every service that MNOs are seeking to use. And so, In that case, T-Mobile asked Apple to test Starlink to make sure that the phones work properly with Starlink's direct-to-cell service. And so as you guys will recall, I think AST SpaceMobile dropped that day like 10, 15%. There was a ton of FUD. And for the Musk influencers, the accounts that pushed the the Tesla and SpaceX narrative, they really pounded the table that, oh my gosh, something secret was going on with Apple and SpaceX. And for those of us that are intimately familiar with the industry, that testing you'd expect, right? And so we also dug deep and found filings that showed that Apple was testing with AST SpaceMobile too, at least in terms of setting standards around NTN. And then these recent filings actually that came to light, and it's actually, I guess they're not recent. These were filed in August of August 15th, 2025. And so, you know, Katsy uncovered them today or yesterday, but yeah, Apple is testing with AST SpaceMobile. And so for those that are unfamiliar, some of the 600 megahertz, which is low-band cellular spectrum, That is T-Mobile. They own some of that and then, or a decent amount of that, which they acquired through the Sprint merger. And I believe they bought some of that through a spectrum auction, but the 700 and 800 megahertz, that's primarily all AT&T and Verizon. And then the PCSG block, which is 1.9 gigahertz, and that's the service that Starlink currently provides service for T-Mobile phones. That's mid-band spectrum. That was also included in this filing. And so you could run the same headlines that these Musk accounts are running, that Starlink is working closely with Apple. You can say the same thing, AST SpaceMobile is working closely with Apple. In these filings, they don't specifically mention Starlink, nor do they mention AST SpaceMobile, but it's clear that these are the 2 operators, right? And so I think there was like, there was a Globalstar investor that said, hey, well, Globalstar is the only one that has an investment from Apple that they're working closely with. That's true. Apple is working obviously with Globalstar. They invested in an SBB, which is basically like a joint venture to, and they put their spectrum assets into it and then the constellation and Apple owns 85% of their capacity. However, in this FCC filing, there's no mention of Globalstar spectrum, which is L and S-band. I think most of their stuff is in the 2.4 gigahertz around there. And so specifically for this iPhone 17 testing, it is only with AST SpaceMobile spectrum and some of Starlink's. And the reason why this filing is really important is the fact that I believe it was one of the Apple websites that carries news, but Apple has plans for iPhone 18 to work seamlessly with satellite connectivity. And in particular, Apple is seeking to have that service be seamless, meaning not like the Globalstar service where you have to go outside, You have to point directly at the satellite and stay pointed at the satellite. Apple is seeking to have service that seamlessly works. So you won't even know if it switches between the MNO or the satellite network, and it's going to work indoors. It'll be, you know, the way that that was portrayed is that you could have the phone in your pocket and it'll still work with the satellite. And so the only way that that works is if you are using low-band cellular spectrum. So what does that mean? Low-band cellular spectrum, which is between 600 to 900 megahertz, primarily 800 megahertz, that has characteristics that enable for broad coverage and propagation. Propagation meaning it can go through 1, 2, 3 walls. And so if you are in your house, the reason why people love AT&T and Verizon service is that they have a large trove of low-band cellular spectrum. And so when you go into your home, let's say if your Wi-Fi is down, your phone will work, or if you're in your car, your phone works, or if you're in New York City and you go down into the subway, your phone still works. And that's why low-band spectrum is very, very important. The spectrum strategy for carriers is that you want to have build kind of like a multi-layer cake where you have a decent amount of low-band spectrum to provide coverage, and then you have some level of mid-band spectrum to provide capacity because mid-band spectrum can carry more data. And then this is part of 5G, you have some level of high-band spectrum, which is really, really high-speed data. But of course, that spectrum is limited to having The user needing to be in line of sight or in areas that are unobstructed, right? And so you need a layered cake. And for a long time, T-Mobile didn't have that layered cake. They were primarily just a mid-band spectrum cellular company. And so for those that used T-Mobile back in the day, like during the '90s and 2000s, its service was horrendous because if you walked into any building in New York City, your cell phone would drop. because they didn't have any low-band spectrum. But through the merger with Sprint and then also through getting spectrum through an auction, 600 MHz spectrum, they've improved their ability to provide greater coverage through buildings and things like that. So anyway, this filing, what it means is that AST SpaceMobile, Apple is testing that spectrum with AST satellites. They're probably, I don't know, maybe they're under some NDA and they can't disclose that, but eventually it will get disclosed. And Apple, if they truly are trying to provide seamless coverage, there's only one provider that can do that. It's not Globalstar. It's not Starlink. It's AST SpaceMobile. And so you might ask, well, doesn't Starlink, doesn't T-Mobile own some 600 MHz spectrum? Couldn't they let Starlink use that? The answer is, Absolutely not, because there's two issues with that. One, the Starlink satellites are architected to only work with mid-band spectrum. So it's not as if you can take that same satellite and say, hey, you're lighting up 1.9 gigahertz spectrum. Can you go light up the 600 megahertz spectrum? No, you can't, because the way that the wavelengths work and the phased array, the spacing of the antenna elements, which I learned through Through CAPSIs, very long information threads, you just can't do that. And so you actually have to put up a completely different satellite. And so that's actually what AST SpaceMobile is doing right now. The Block 2 satellites are— and Block 1 satellites are low-band focused. And so they can do the 600— excuse me, I've been over cold. I'm gonna have a drink here. But yeah, those satellites can do 600 and 900 megahertz. And then the Block 3 satellites, which the company has discussed, can do— will have closer antenna elements. And so they'll be able to do mid-band spectrum anywhere between 1.5 gigahertz to as high as I think 2.4, 2.5 gigahertz. And that's going to be the Block 3 satellites, which is the next constellation. That constellation will be able to utilize any S-band spectrum that we've either acquired or partnered for, and then of course, Legato spectrum. And so Starlink has only been allocated 1.9 gigahertz here in the US. It's a 5 by 5 megahertz channel. The other thing that, so on one hand, Starlink can only focus on mid-band spectrum, Unless they put out an entirely new constellation, which is possible, I guess. But the other issue, which is really important, that they have to overcome if they want to do that, is they have to have dynamic beamforming that can put fixed cells, can beam information down on Earth in fixed cells, meaning as the satellite moves, the cells that it beams down, these little hexagons, Those have to stay fixed. And the reason why that is important is that if you're going to reuse cellular spectrum, remember that there is a network that's already up and running today on that spectrum. So that's terrestrial towers. And so let's just making an example, if you're in New York City, obviously New York City's well covered by cellular spectrum. And so AST SpaceMobile is not gonna beam down coverage on New York City. However, the outer areas, let's say on Long Island, Let's just pretend like there's a space between the Hamptons and New York City. There's a big gap of coverage. AST can beam down fixed cells and go basically be very pinpoint accurate in not interfering with the terrestrial network and putting down very specific coverage on low-band spectrum. And that's what makes AST's solution far superior and elegant because then for the carriers, it can reuse cellular spectrum. The carriers can, for example, decommission towers to save money and just have AST beam down coverage for areas that need coverage, but may not have a ton of population where it's not economic. Starlink can't do that. Starlink has moving beams. I guess the satellites could turn them on and turn them off in particular areas, but given that Starlink operates at a much higher power level, which causes interference, no Cellular operator, MNO, is going to want Starlink anywhere near their cellular spectrum because the fact that they can't put down precise fixed cells, their cells are moving, and because they are high power and they cause a lot of interference, you're going to degrade your own service. So the potential idea that Starlink could even do that, one, they need to develop a new satellite. Two, they actually have to go back to the drawing board and develop a system that can put down fixed cells in a very precise way. And so AST today can, each satellite can, for low band can put down, I think it's around 2,500 fixed cells. And then for mid-band, the mid-band spectrum, the Block 3 satellites, because of the way the spectrum works, they'll be able to put down about 10,000 fixed cells per satellite. And so those are 2 important aspects. That's why Starlink is focused on buying mid-band spectrum. They acquired EchoStar's MSS spectrum, and because that's the area that they're going to use, it's what their technology can use. Eventually what they'll have is dedicated bands of spectrum that can beam down service to users in or out of cellular coverage, right? And so that actually, so the key takeaway here is that Apple is testing with AST SpaceMobile. If you believe the articles of Apple looking at this internally, that they want to have a seamless satellite coverage that can operate indoors, there's only one provider that can do that. And that's AST SpaceMobile. And so Do we see that later this year? Or maybe there's like some leaks that happen that the companies are working very closely together. I think it's likely. And so that's what I meant by yesterday. This is the alpha. You know, the market institutional guys, whoever, they don't understand this yet. And it's for the people that really drill down into these filings. The writing's on the wall. The puzzle pieces are there. And so, so that's the alpha, like Apple is working with AST SpaceMobile, obviously with Verizon and AT&T and FirstNet here in the US. And then of course, 50 MNOs globally. And so eventually that will become news. And yeah, we're just early to it. Moving on to SpaceX. So there was an article from Reuters and it just pretty much You know, covered what we all know, right? Which is Elon has grand ambitions for SpaceX. He eventually wants to develop his own phone and his own service, right? And so there's a few things to unpack there, and I think it's important. One, he can certainly, you know, develop his own phone, and that's, you know, I think he'll put together a perfectly capable phone. I don't know if he'll do that on his own or do it in partnership with someone, but anyone who partners with SpaceX will ultimately, you know, you're going to get disrupted, right? And so partnering with them on the one hand is like a short-term financial boost. On the long term, probably not good for your own business. But that said, you know, I believe that they'll put together a pretty competitive phone because there's a lot of people that love that love Musk and SpaceX and Tesla. And, you know, there's great brands there and obviously he's a great innovator and I'm sure he'll put together a pretty capable phone. That phone, of course, will it run on his own OS? Yes, it will. Clearly, if he's developing his own AI, he's not going to be, he's not going to want to leverage Apple ecosystem or Google ecosystem. He's going to develop his own. And that's that. This goes back to this whole discussion of the Elon Musk vertical stack. Like now he's putting all the pieces in place where it's going to be this monolithic behemoth that competes with everyone else. Right. And so, and so that phone is going to leverage primarily mid-band spectrum, right? Because the, and there's going to be some limitations, but mid-band spectrum, meaning satellite, spectrum here in the US that will work on Starlink Direct-to-Cell. And as we all know, that architecture is flawed, right? Like for example, you can't do voice over LTE. It's gotta be VoIP because the satellites, when you get handed off every 2 to 3 minutes and your phone's constantly searching for satellites, that doesn't make a good environment for voice calls, right? But then again, some people, they don't really care about voice. I mean, I rarely use my phone for voice, but that service is going to have limitations too, because as I mentioned before, it's mid-band spectrum. How many satellites can serve a specific cell? I don't know if they've developed MIMO yet or have that in store in their plans. I'm sure they do, but that service is going to be pretty choppy and you're not going to be able to go into your home and use it. And maybe that's okay because you're— the Musk is going to say, hey, you can use Starlink fixed wireless and we'll put it, you know, you can have that in your house and then you can have the Wi-Fi router, you know, service your phone once you go inside. But the whole idea about buying mid-band spectrum, which is, you know, EchoStar spectrum, is that they're going to have nationwide coverage just like we are with Legato. And so with this With this new phone, you'll be able to connect to Starlink anywhere, right? Now, in dense areas, the service is probably going to be pretty bad because if there's a lot of users using it at the same time, then that's not good. But in suburban areas or remote areas, the service will be pretty decent for data. And so that's the idea is that Musk is going to have his own phone. He's going to have his own service. He's going to own the customer. And so if you're T-Mobile, you know, Sievert, of course, now is the former CEO of T-Mobile is gone. If you're management at T-Mobile and you see this news, you're like, holy shit, what did we just do? Like, we're partnering with this guy. We've basically introduced the Starlink brand to all of our customers and they have our customer information. Now Musk is going to not only develop a phone, He's going to develop a service and he's going to take our customers. Like, they're the ones who are most familiar with him and they probably are going to move there. And so what did I just do? Like, I sold my future to him. But there's limitations, as I said, like that service is not going to be good in dense areas or areas where there's a lot of people, which is quite frankly a lot of places. So the next step is that he will, and T-Mobile will have to do this, Because they sold the farm and they enabled this, then they'll be the logical player to then just cave on this. But if I was SpaceX, what I would do is then force T-Mobile into an MVNO agreement, meaning, hey, T-Mobile, I'm starting this service. I'm going to use your network and I'll pay you roaming fees, basically, just like Boost Mobile or some of these smaller MVNOs or Mint Mobile. And so what SpaceX could do is they will, or Starlink, they will enter an MVNO agreement with T-Mobile, just like the cable guys did with Verizon and whoever. The issue with the cable guys is that for Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile, working with cable guys is fine, right? Because I mean, at the end of the day, you might get some incremental traffic on your network from the cable guys, but we all know that cable guys are awful. For customer service. And so that's not really a competitive threat. However, an X phone running Starlink that's branded, and you've got a lot of people who are big fans of Musk, that's a real competitive threat. And so by entering into an MVNO agreement, you're pretty much guaranteeing like some serious erosion of your own subscriber base, but also, you know, your competitors as well. And so there is this like race to the bottom where there might be, some of these guys might be forced to say, okay, I'll work with you because you're going to take share from me anyway, but I might as well get some of those dollars back. And so that's why this is like a pretty big deal. Because if you're one of these MNOs, it's a big threat to your underlying business, right? And it's almost like prisoner's dilemma, like who works with them and who doesn't. The party that works with them is probably going to get hollowed out, But maybe they're going to get hollowed out anyway. And so from a competitive standpoint, this is a big problem, right? And so, but it's not just an O&O problem. It's also a big problem for Apple. It's a big problem for Google, for Samsung, like anybody who is around the mobile phone ecosystem. This is a huge problem, right? So for Apple, I mean, we all know that Apple's growth and profitability is driven by their iPhones. And for Google, like Android is huge and the ecosystem that's built around that, that's huge too. And of course we haven't even talked about like X or xAI. These are all big competitive problems. But that said, like this vertically integrated Elon Musk stack, like it's going to attract a number of people, but it's not going to be everybody. And so I myself, you know, I have tremendous amount of respect for him, but I I'm an Apple person. I do have a PC for my trading, but I pretty much have all Apple products. Like, I'm not moving. But for Apple, this is a huge competitive threat, right? And so this, I remember the article suggesting that, oh, maybe Apple and Starlink are going to work together, that the probability of them working closely together is At this point, probably zero, right? Because then that means that Apple has conceded the hardware business. Because if X is making their own phone, they're going to be coming after your bread and butter business, which is the iPhone, right? And so you are not going to let them into the henhouse. You're not going to let the fox into the henhouse. You are going to do everything you can To wall that off. Obviously, you have to work together to some degree to certify your phone that will work with the Starlink D2C network. But beyond that, you're not going to be giving them any or doing them any favors, right? And so that is a huge competitive threat. It's for Google and it's for, yeah, for Apple, for Samsung. And so What the tweet that I had put out earlier, that that's why ASD Space Mobile becomes that much more critical because then you've got this outside of this SpaceX Tesla XAI monolith. You've got everyone else, and it's not as if like these are all two-bit players, right? These are very powerful companies. They're going to be looking to ASD Space Mobile for. Doing direct-to-device communications, but they're also going to be looking to the company for data centers, right? I've talked about this before where AST SpaceMobile is the only non-prime, old-school legacy prime. It's the only company that's putting together multi-ton satellites, 4, 5, 6-ton satellites that can generate 100 kilowatts of energy, that have onboard processing. I mean, it's already doing all the data center stuff today, right? But it's doing it for communications. However, just moving, you know, re-architecting the satellites and putting different processors on there, I'm sure you've got to make additional modifications, but, you know, the 3,800 patents, you leverage those and you start making data centers. And so you become, you know, not only is your importance to Apple and Google really high for this battle in communications with Elon. And that includes AT&T, Verizon, I mean, every MNO. All of a sudden, like this company in Midland, Texas is now like the nexus of, and at the forefront of your battle against the SpaceX empire, right? Which is data centers, right? Data centers in space. You know, if that eventually comes into the fore, I think Elon tweeted this morning that, or there was some interview where he said he thinks that we will reach parity. And of course, like he's, there's a bit of hype there, but he thinks that data centers in space will reach parity with terrestrial data centers in 3 years. And I think that's very optimistic. But the key takeaway is like, that's where things are going. And so ASD SpaceMobile becomes that much more critical because it has the technology and the building blocks to do that. And we're already working with Apple, Google, AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Orange, you name it, Telefonica, everybody. And by the way, like all these MNOs, they all have they all have fiber businesses. They all do data centers. They do hosting, all that stuff. And so it's not just these like smaller, or not, they're not small, but these like new data center players like CoreWeave. These MNOs, they all do that stuff too. And so I think it's going to take time for the market to digest all this stuff. And there was like an X user that replied to my post and said, oh, I think AST will go down because of this news. And You know, hint everyone, the entire market is going down. Like there's risk liquidations going on and it's not because of this particular news. It's just, you know, crypto's getting pummeled and of course like the market is facing, you know, people are degrossing on the institutional side and just causing a cascading effect. And so this is why I mentioned earlier today, like Do not use margin in periods of high volatility. You want to be able to stay in the game because I've seen a lot of people, whether, I mean, you're seeing a lot of these stories in crypto where people have amassed like a huge nest egg and then they continue to stay for whatever crazy reason, long leverage Bitcoin. I don't, and some of these numbers are crazy, like 25x, 100x, and they just completely nuked their accounts, right? Not saying that anyone here is doing that, but when using margin, use it judiciously, use it in a very measured way and have tight risk limits. I don't think using margin right now is a good idea. And if you do have margin, just think, you know, can you survive another drawdown of 10, 20, 30%? And if you can't, then you need to get off of margin. But the reason why I mentioned this is that This news yesterday and today is huge, and it's— the market can't see it, nor does the market want to see it. Like, right now, everybody is just trying to survive. But when things calm down and risk comes back into the market, which can happen at any time, it's going to be really powerful, right? Like, just imagine the headlines if maybe in a few weeks or months, but if it's announced that AST and Apple have formed a strategic partnership or Apple has put in an investment into the company side by side with Google's already existing investment, like what does that mean for the company? That would be, in my opinion, that would be game-changing. And it's something that we as Space mob, we expect that, but market has no clue. And so I think, yeah, it's, this is big stuff and this is the time when fortunes are made when the market is panicking and you're able to stay in the game and you manage your risk properly because coming out of the other side, Yeah, for the people that are able to stay convicted and hold their positions, that's when you make a fortune, right? And so this, we saw this back when AST was at $2. Obviously there was a lot to be de-risked back then. That was before the commercial agreements with AT&T and Verizon were signed. And then of course that unlocked a huge wave of like, you know, then the company became Financially solid, you know, when the stock rallied. And of course, that's when all the military contractors, as we know from presentation that Michael Pollack gave, that's when all the military contractors, or not contractors, that was when SDA, the DOD, and a whole host of other folks started calling the company because they're like, oh, these guys are real. And so these are the data points, the catalysts that unlock the next step function of value, right? So if Apple were to come in tomorrow and say, we're working closely with AST, we're investing, I don't know, a billion dollars into the company, that would be game-changing. And that's not out of the realm of possibility. Is it going to happen tomorrow? I don't know. Weeks, months from now? I'm not sure. But as we all know, we've got A number of other catalysts that are we're waiting patiently for. I know people are getting very, as we say, stock price writes the narrative. I think people are becoming very nervous and they're like, oh, why why isn't the company announced unfolding of the satellite? Why haven't they done this or that? That's in that's coming. Like unfolding satellite, you know, I think we're slated to launch on New Glenn three. There is a possibility that it will be the last week of February or. slip into the first week of March. And the reason why that is, is that you've got Artemis and the crude launch for Falcon 9. And, you know, some people have asked, well, why haven't the batches of Bluebirds been sent down, the Block 2 Bluebirds? And because of all this traffic that's going on down at the Cape, I think we're probably— the company's not gonna announce anything until the processing facility down there is ready to accept those satellites. So, but that said, you know, we could walk in this afternoon or tomorrow and see that the FCC has approved our application for commercial service in the US, which is imminent. It could happen anytime. And that is a big game changer. So there's a lot of these things that are kind of percolating and yeah, it's an exciting time. I mean, I think obviously the market having this volatility, it's probably hard for some people to stomach, but if you know what you own, you're not on margin, you don't have to worry about it. And it's just, you know, this is, I think going back to the last time we had a pretty big drawdown was in April during the tariffs scare, which ended up being not, if you looked back on it, it was not as big of a deal as people thought. And it was actually a huge opportunity to allocate risk. Yeah, we're seeing that right now. And I think as Cook said during his space over the weekend, when you zoom out and you look at all the different periods where we had, you know, where there was COVID or the tariff scare, or I mean, going back to like 2012 when the US was down there, the credit was downgraded, or I mean, any number of these volatility events, you can look back and they were all kind of blips. In the market, right? And so I think it's important to stay levelheaded and to make sure you know what you own. If there's marginal stuff that you own, you know, that's typically— and this is why it's, you don't want to have too much of this marginal stuff because when you do have these type of drawdowns, oftentimes you don't have the conviction to hold them and then you just take a lot, you sell them, take a loss. And that's kind of the nature of not knowing what you own. But anyway, I don't want to keep rambling. I do think, as I said before, just in summary, the news that Apple is testing with AST SpaceMobile cellular bands is really important. It's something that, and this is another thing, the company is, they don't use the press to leak this stuff. They're pretty tight-lipped and they just execute. And so unlike, you know, SpaceX that will leak a whole horde of stuff to try to influence opinion or, you know, trial balloons, whatever. The company just does stuff. They just do it and then they eventually PR it or they continue to just do their knitting, right? And so for many years, and I'll be honest, like I think 2022, 2023, once the military stuff started becoming more real to us, there were times when I would talk to management and be like, hey, why don't you guys like talk more about this, or if you needed to, you could use the press, you could like kind of leak some of this stuff. And it was an absolute, like, that's not their DNA. They're not doing that. And so I think there's a lot of surprises in store for us. And the company is, I think, you know, they're respectful of whatever they're doing with Apple, they're not going to leak it. And if something does come of it, then it'll get disclosed at the right time. And so that's important. As I mentioned, Apple is looking for, and they've disclosed that they want to have a broadband, a seamless broadband service that mimics cellular, and that's AST. It's not Starlink, it's definitely not Globalstar. And so that's one important takeaway. And then number 2, the fact that SpaceX is developing their own phone and they want to develop their own service, that is a huge competitive issue for the entire existing ecosystem. And for some people, they're like, oh yeah, that's great. Disrupt all of them, which, you know, good competition is good. But for Apple, Samsung, Google, even the Chinese phone makers, and then all the MNOs globally, they've got to figure out who do they partner with. And there's only one company. It's AST SpaceMobile. And it's It's for communications, but it's also for this, the future, which is data centers in space. And so, you know, AST is a logical candidate to work with. The company's ramping up to production of 12 satellites a month. Eventually, once the constellations are up, that production is going to be there. It's already there, and they'll need to start producing something else. And what other thing, you know, multi-ton satellite, With processing, all the power, heat dissipating, the heat radiating technology. What other thing can you do? Data centers. Are data centers that different than what you're doing today? No, they're actually pretty close. So I'll end it with that. A lot to think about. And yeah, everyone stay calm. It's going to be a pretty volatile day. And perhaps this is going to be, you know, we might have additional days like this, but Yeah, as long as you know what you own, you can be pretty comfortable. I'm not stressed. I don't think you should be either, and we'll make it through. Anyway, I'll do another space maybe tomorrow, maybe this afternoon or whenever. But yeah, this is exciting news. Good for your investment. And just in the back of your mind, keep that. If you're stressed because the stock price is down, just remind yourself, like, why do you own this? What's the opportunity? what has changed? Has anything changed? Actually, yeah, a lot of good stuff has just come out since yesterday, and yet the stock price is down. If you have cash and you want additional exposure, then if you loved it at $120, you'll— I'm sorry, if you liked it at $120, you'll love it at $98. But I'll end it there, and we'll talk again soon. Take care, everyone.
[00:40:45] Speaker C: Number Soul. Too good to be true. Will it work? We don't have a clue. Lily awaits, we will be there soon. Swinging for the stars, the Earth and Moon. A whisper through the static hiss. We love the risk. Yeah, we love the risk.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Whoa.
[00:41:45] Speaker C: We love the risks. We love the risks. Bluebird soar, connect the world. Fortunes rise and seeds unfurl. We hold the line through the fear and bliss, 'cause we're The model space. We, we love the race. Tears of joy from our first call. Reaching lives, connecting all. Hills and seas where no towers stand, connecting voices in forgotten lands. Each day feels like a bluebird's kiss, a journey to Leo Abyss. We love the rest. We love the risk, groove our soul, connect the world. For our souls rise as each unfurls. We hold the line through the fear and bliss. 'Cause we're the Model Space. We— We, we love the race. Ride the spectrum, chase the beam, never foolish enough. Hold, hold, hold it in that time. We love the risk. Where we love the risk.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Three, two, one.
[00:44:57] Speaker C: We love the risk.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST Space. 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. We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this technology we can really affect beings AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly from space to the everyday smartphone. 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 MNOs. Listen.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Mmm, waffles.