Abel Avellan on CNBC

[00:00:00] Speaker A: get to here with you. But first, let's start with this idea of a joint venture between the largest U.S. telecom providers to add space-enabled connectivity. How will you play in that?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Well, I think that's an effort to make direct-to-device connectivity to every American and basically make it in a way that is standard, available in every device, in every phone for every carrier. And for that, that's great. It's great news. And it's now every American can get our service.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Can you share any details in terms of that relationship and the role you'll play in it?
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Well, I think we are the only broadband system that is available in terms of the technology to basically do hundreds of megabits per second directly to any device. This is a change of how the operator thinks about where the connectivity from space plays a role in your day-to-day usage of the technology. And I believe this is great news for us. It's a— we are a key enabler for this. We invented this. We did the first voice call over satellite, the first 5G connection over satellite, the first broadband connection over satellite. And just a few weeks back, we demonstrated close to 100 megabits per second from space directly to your phone. And that's very, very unique and a very nice position to be in as the world is transforming how people connect.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to get into that a little bit more here in just a moment. You also recently released earnings, maintained full-year revenue guidance. The thing that investors really focus on is these Bloomberg satellites and how quickly you can build them and deploy them. I mean, we did see that Blue Origin New Glenn rocket launch that ultimately ended in a failure to deploy your satellites in the correct positions and, and to be able to start operating and working. 45 satellites is still your plan for this year. What does that look like?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: It is. We're on target today. We're shipping the next batch of satellites to the launch pad. We have launches approximately every month and now it's opening. I mean, we have multiple launch providers as partners, including SpaceX, and we are very excited about what will happen during the year in terms of launches and in terms of multiple launches that we have with multiple partners for, for doing that.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of SpaceX, I was just in Alaska over the weekend and it's incredible. You go to parts of the wilderness above the Arctic Circle, there's no roads. In some cases there's no running water, but there is Starlink. So how do you think about this competitive landscape and this competitive environment when Starlink is looking to do direct-to-device as well? And then, of course, you have Amazon's LEO buying Globalstar.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I think this all revolves about the speed and capacity that you can get into the phone. What has changed, the transformation that is happening in the wireless industry, is that space is not just when you're in the middle of nowhere. It's when you're driving from here to the Hamptons and when your connectivity is not as good as you expected. So broadband will make the difference, making it available to absolutely every device without any change to the device and really get hundreds of megabits per second into the device for For that, you need spectrum, you need satellites, and more importantly, you need large satellites, because that's really where the tricks happen. It's physics. You need large satellites that have the ability to listen to the very small power that a small device puts in going up to space. And that's what we have. We have over 3,800 patents and patent-pending claims on how to do that. That's what we have demonstrated. And what we're showing— we're showing up today. It's not a future demonstration. We just recently— announced over 100 megabits, close to 100 megabits per second directly to a regular device.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, forget energy. I would actually argue that spectrum is probably one of the most prized commodities out there and continue to— will be— continue— will continue to be, because arguably even more than energy, you need full connectivity to fully realize this AI revolution.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, that's why we make a huge investment. We did a big bet that actually is paying off. We bought spectrum in North America, over 45 megahertz of spectrum. We have priority rights outside North America. We're around 60 megahertz of spectrum. And more importantly, together with the partners, we have access to their IMT regular spectrum that is already on the phones. So some of our partners have close to 100 megahertz of spectrum that they can allocate to our network. Nobody has anything close to that. So in terms of available spectrum, we When you combine our ability to address low-band, mid-band, and future MSS spectrum, we have more than anybody else. So broadband is the future. We focus on making the satellites large for that. We focus on investing billions of dollars to get this technology to work. We are on the verge of starting to deploy it.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Very quickly, SpaceX IPO, game changer for the sector overall?
[00:04:55] Speaker B: I think it creates a new category that is great for everybody in the space. I think it provides the visibility. And if you think about what is really the recurrent revenue come from that? It's connectivity. So connectivity, it is a game changer. It's a new revolution for this, for the wireless industry. And a lot of that will come from space. And we see it as a market expansion. So we don't see this as a replacement. We see this as an expansion of what the wireless ecosystem can do. And that's why we partner with every single one. We have over 50 operators where we have partnerships, including now we will have access to every operator in the United States.