AST SpaceMobile
Our latest (as of this writing) ‘Weekly Stock Picks’ featured a space tech company, AST SpaceMobile, ticker symbol AST.
At $4.75/share, a space tech penny stock is an immediate red flag. If you think THIS is a red flag, you should see what other space stock we recommended! Spoiler It’s deficient!
But enough about our ridiculous gambles, back to AST. What, exactly, makes this company worth talking about? A better question is - why aren’t you already talking about this one?
AST SpaceMobile is, in their own words, “Building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network.”. They won’t be the “only” one for very long, but that’s neither here nor there.
Their test satellite is deployed and operational, working as intended. What’s significant is that this is the final satellite before they begin to deploy the “BlueBirds”, the actual commercial satellites. Now, satellite based cellular technology is nothing new, so who cares? And what about the ground-based infrastructure needed to make things go?
Firstly, this doesn’t need ground-based towers to make things go. It can provide broadband directly to your device without modification. It can give your BoostMobile phone the same bandwidth you’d get from a Wi-Fi connection, without regard to the proximity of a connecting device. That’s pretty freaking sweet. (As long as you’re in an area covered by a satellite, which in 2023 is simple and basic).
“But Rocky!”, you say, “If satellite coverage is so simple and basic, why doesn’t every African have Starlink?!” .
Easy there, killer. First of all, StarLink requires a receiving satellite dish. Second of all, you can’t just go around using any existing technology willy-nilly. There’s patents and IP laws and all sorts of legal stuff that is all part of that whole ‘commercially viable’ aspect that makes these kind of feats of mankind possible.
Now, while SpaceMobile doesn’t need towers to give service to your phone, it does need towers to ensure redundancy and signal strength stability. Also, to communicate with other carriers so you can continue talking to people on other networks. Does this mean SpaceMobile needs to install cell towers?
NO. That’s dumb. It has business relationships with Vodafone and others to gain access to existing infrastructure, without having to worry about its functionality.
(Regarding the possibility that satellites are a hoax and it’s all ground-based to begin with….Okay? That wouldn’t change anything for us, as consumers. More likely is the idea that they’re all just High-Altitude Balloons carrying telecomm modules. Again…Okay? That still doesn’t affect us as consumers.
This is what makes fringe ideas like “gravity is just density” so hard to give a shit about. Yeah, okay, let’s say it’s all true, cool. It doesn’t change the observable effects, and doesn’t change the way it affects us average people in any practical way. Same thing for Flat-Earth vs Globe-Earth vs plane space (obviously the right model). It’s good clickbait for content creators, but has virtually no impact one way or the other for 99% of us.)
Alright, we’re bored, and you probably are, too. SpaceMobile’s website is like every other company that has no commercial operations available to the public - that is, it’s just a basic “for investors” website. Nothing wrong with that, just there isn’t much to glean.
How exactly does this technology work? Well, the satellites are (like most satellites) powered by solar energy. At that point they effectively function as a cell tower…in space! Remember a moment ago when we mentioned they don’t require the use of towers to deliver a signal? That’s because they ARE their own tower.
“But Rocky!”, you say, “How do cell towers work?”.
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HERE’S ANOTHER PICTURE GOODBYE FOR NOW
