Scott Wisniewski at The Novaspace World Space Business Week

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:09] 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.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having us. We at AST SpaceMobile have had a cellular broadband-first strategy and approach to direct-to-device. It's a purpose-built direct-to-device network. It's created with the MNO operator in mind. The architecture works for the operator. They've been in the room with us building this over time. So for us, we always come from the lineage of Broadband approach, premium add-on, filling in the gaps and the cracks. And that's been the approach we've followed throughout our life and really since inception. So with the operators, AT&T and Verizon are investors in the US, Vodafone in Europe, Bell Canada in Canada, and Rakuten in Japan. And then we also have investment from American Tower and Google. Our approach has always been ecosystem-centric. How do we best make the service work in the end state for the operators, which will work for the end user? And so that's been our approach on the business side. Building that business through being a revenue source as opposed to a cost center is absolutely critical in any telecom service. And that's how we've built the business. And that's how we've organized our go-to-market strategy. We've signed commercial agreements, definitive commercial agreements with AT&T and Vodafone. Our other major partners are not far behind. And all in all, we have over 50 MNOs signed up globally who come first. I think that's where things should be. That's where the ARPU generation is. That's where the trillion-dollar market is. But overall, we are very friendly to the ecosystem and want to build this out to maximize the size of the market because we think users want connectivity and they, and we see it every day. We feel it every day. And we have a very flexible technology solution to deliver that to them. on a cellular broadband basis.
[00:02:13] Speaker D: 3 to 4 months, when do you expect to launch? And then I'll do the general panel question.
[00:02:18] Speaker C: Yeah, we're at a really exciting moment for us in that we're putting real big architecture into place in space. Constellations are very hard, often attempted, rarely successful. We have a few on the panel with us today, but it's hard to overstate how hard building a constellation is. And we've been successful in putting up 5, largest 5 satellites ever commercially deployed in low Earth orbit. And our next generation satellite that's more than 3 times the size is ready to roll off the factory floor very soon. And so that is going to be going on one of 3 different launch partners. And we plan 13 total launches over the next year and a half. And to further public disclosure on that point, we've done 5, we plan 5 launches at least through Q1 of next year. So we are getting very ready. We're very excited. We've taken a launch agnostic strategy to make sure we get to orbit as fast as we can, as often as we can with our very large satellites. And it's a very exciting moment for us. And we think that putting that now into orbit is very smart because we're all seeing what was just mentioned on the spectrum front. We of course made our spectrum investment earlier this year and believe that MSS together with cellular is a fantastic way to go. And we think that the recent spectrum investment conveys a couple things. One is the value of the spectrum asset that we have today. And 2, the value of the market and expectation over time. We think that that sort of spectrum investment, terrestrial-style spectrum investment, conveys what ultimately is a very big market and gets to my earlier point. This notion that this is a small market, this is, this is, this is, that already coverage exists everywhere, that's perfect, it's just not correct. There's gonna be a tremendous role for satellites in the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years in making these evolving and imperfect cellular networks that we all depend on for our lives, our convenience, and frankly, fun, and just how we've evolved as human beings is absolutely critical in this. And every investment that's been made by this panel and others conveys, I think, how big that's going to be. And everyone's trying to get organized around that.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: Thank you, Scott. What makes your approach, whether technically or commercially, truly differentiated? I'll leave it open-ended.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: I'll jump in. So our satellites are very large. We think that that's always been the right answer. We think that's where the market will go. Having a large aperture in orbit, if you can pull it off, gives you better propagation characteristics to the phone, gives you the capability to handle more frequencies, which can balance both a cellular and an MSS strategy, which is what we do. It allows you to service a lot of MNOs. It allows you to service multiple frequencies within the same beam, and it allows you ultimately to have a very large pipe to deliver as much service as possible. And, you know, that's always been at the base for us because we feel like this is a real strategic big thing. And, and, you know, part of what we've had to explain over the years is try to tell that story. And it's, and frankly, it doesn't really make much sense. All of us got cell phones about, you know, year 2000 or so. And in the '80s, one of my favorite anecdotes is people were trying to figure out what the use case for cell phones are. And, you know, big debate for that because you have a phone in your house. What do you need a phone on the go for? And they thought maybe real estate agents would use it when they're going between showings. So that was a use case they identified for cellular phones. And of course we don't know what the future holds. What we know is that we are desperate for connectivity. I mean, frankly, we're addicted. Every generation, every year, more and more people need this. They want this as a service. More than many other household items. So when you talk about interest in the service, ability to pay, the key is that we don't have a new device. The device exists, sort of facilitates all different sorts of ARPUs for all different types of services. You can sell a bit, you can sell a gigabyte, you can do a lot of different things. So for us, it's always been about how do you facilitate that full stack, that full offering with a flexible technology, now a flexible spectrum strategy, and that allows us to figure out what will come. And we do that With an ecosystem approach, we are we believe a very friendly partner for the operators. We always have been, and even just in Europe, you know, Vodafone's invested in us in 2019, in 2023, in 2024. I think it was three times, and they recently formed a joint venture with us. So we're going to market in Europe with them, and we've signed up 21 of the 27 member states already. So for us, it's about the tech. Layering in the spectrum that's important that we all know and understand and bringing to bear the operators and making it work for them. Because ultimately satellites and space has not been relevant to cellular in a big way in the past. And that cellular market, that consumer mass market touching the 8 billion lives, the 6 billion phones is ultimately what we're all trying to do. And we believe that our technology can do that in a very unique way. And we're launching satellites, a handful of launches later this year and many more in 2026.
[00:07:20] Speaker E: SpaceMobile. Their whole ball of wax is this thing. And so your risk is relatively low. So I'd like to ask, God, isn't that an awfully risky position considering you're going to be competing against all of these other people who in fact are using existing assets? So if it doesn't go as well as you think it does, as the studies indicate, they don't risk very much at all. But you've got your whole ball of wax hung out on these projections. Isn't that a consideration? You guys are really out on the risk curve, are you not?
[00:08:03] Speaker C: That's a great point. And the funny thing about financial risk is that it goes both ways. So we're very excited about the risk profile, Of this sector, we've always been a huge believer in it. Everything we've thought has come to come to bear. The big satellite strategy is right. The cellular partner strategy is right. The cellular plus MSS for frequencies strategy is right, and we've done a fantastic job building it up as fast as possible. The vertically integrated strategy is right. You can't build a constellation by by purchase order. So we love the risk. We think this is going to be a big market. We think that having access to one of the major bands and the largest portion of it and the most valuable wireless market in the world is an incredible beachhead. And having the ecosystem that we have with over 50 mobile network operators is an incredible position to be in with 6 million phones, 6 billion phones out in the market. So we love the risk. We think it's a great market. We're building it out with cellular broadband, which is the right strategy. And so I think the The trick with risk is making sure you take the right steps, and we've executed incredibly well, both as a private and a public company. And that's the approach that that we take, and we like that risk, and our partners like that risk. And we think this is going to be a very important market. It's a great place to be.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mover 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.
[00:09:48] 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 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 NMOs.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Listen.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Mmm, waffles.