The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr last week visited the AST SpaceMobile (AST) satellite manufacturing facility in Midland, Texas. He was accompanied by Republican senator Ted Cruz on the visit. AST is building a mega-constellation of high-output satellites that will deliver broadband and voice calls direct to a consumer’s ordinary handsets. Chairman […]

AST SpaceMobile (AST) activated one of its first BlueBird satellites over Japan in order to make a video call with staff from cellular telco Rakuten, its partner operator in Japan. Abel Avellan, CEO at AST, commented: “Another historic first! We completed our initial activation of our first BlueBird satellites in Japan with Rakuten Mobile to […]

AST SpaceMobile (AST) already has five of its Mark 1 ‘BlueWalker’ satellites in orbit but they are far from enough to provide even close to decent coverage of its direct-to-consumer cellular coverage. Key to its 2025 strategy is to launch the larger and more powerful BlueBird satellites. India was initially reported to launch the first […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted AST SpaceMobile, in coordination with AT&T, the ability to test direct-to-cellular connectivity on public safety’s Band 14 spectrum via its BlueBird satellites orbiting Earth. With this approval, it is envisioned that select first responders on FirstNet, Built with AT&T will trial public-safety-grade satellite communications later in 2025. AT&T […]

An Indian rocket will launch AST SpaceMobile’s (AST) first of its 2nd Generation satellites into orbit in May. AST’s intention is to provide a global direct-to-consumer cellular service in conjunction with partners such as Vodafone, AT&T and Verizon. Shareholder optimism is also robust, helped by positive reports from some influential investment banks. But two recent reports […]

AST SpaceMobile (AST) already has five of its BlueBird high-capacity broadband satellites in orbit, and has strong relationships with AT&T, Verizon and Vodafone each of which has stated that they want to start linking their existing cellular clients with AST. But AST needs far more satellites in orbit to provide a global service. The first […]

AST SpaceMobile and Vodafone used the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as well as AST’s financial results, to outline how they will expand their satellite-based direct-to-device connections to Europe, and the rest of AST’s key target markets. The move will be a direct challenge to Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband system. AST’s financial statement outlined how […]

The recent successful ‘direct-to-device’ test video calls by AT&T and Verizon using AST SpaceMobile’s (AST) satellites has prompted analysts at investment firm B Riley Securities to upgrade their advice to clients. Their core guidance rating is ‘Buy’ and the firm says that AST is gaining momentum because of the space-based video calls. This advice, given […]

US telcos AT&T and Verizon have followed Vodafone in Europe by testing video calls using AST SpaceMobile’s orbiting satellites. Verizon and AST successfully trialed a live video call between two mobile devices with one connected via satellite and the other connected via Verizon’s terrestrial network connection, whilst AT&T and AST also successfully completed another video […]

On the same week that analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald issued a favourable forecast for AST SpaceMobile, and helped by an advert at the February 9th Super Bowl, it emerged that AST does not need quite so many satellites to serve North America, pushing its share price up by 17.5 per cent to $31.14 per share. […]