AST SpaceMobile boss outlines benefits
November 25, 2025
AST SpaceMobile’s president Scott Wisniewski spoke about AST’s mobile operator-first approach, comprehensive spectrum position, and massive market opportunity – positioning it to deliver transformative direct-to-device connectivity to billions worldwide.
Wisniewski was addressing Deutsche Bank’s Global Space Summit in New York last week.
He told delegates: “We have incredible terrestrial connectivity compared to where we started 30 years ago from zero. But our phones don’t work perfectly now. We don’t have 100 percent geographic connectivity. And we know that all of us, including every successive generation, are willing to pay for connectivity over most other household items.”
He continued: “AST is entirely focused on the direct device opportunity. We were founded about eight years ago with some initial patents to solve some of the problems that exist with the 3G protocol, and we have since launched five satellites. They’re the largest satellites that are launched commercially in Low Earth Orbit, and we’re getting ready to launch about three times the size next month.”
“We’ve, over this eight year journey, raised about $5 billion in support of this network build-out, making us a LEO constellation that’s entirely focused on cellular. And we’ve done that because, first, from a technology point of view, and second, we’ve partnered with operators. So, we’ve built relationships and agreements with over 50 mobile network operators globally who have nearly 3 billion subscribers,” he added. “We’re entirely focused on the six billion mobile phones that are in circulation today and connecting them when they’re going in and out of connectivity on a daily basis so that people can work and travel. We do this with really differentiated architecture in orbit that we’re reintegrating or building now. And as part of the ecosystem, it’s very important.”
He also explained that AST’s system is not an ecosystem that is owned entirely. AST has partner telcos around the world who will act as retailers for AST’s satellites. “It’s an ecosystem that we participate in, and the mobile network operators are a very important piece. And they’re the ones that we pay our service revenue on our phones and the one trillion-dollar Total Addressable Market,” he said.
“So, we were founded around this opportunity. As it’s grown in the interest over the years, we think that the right strategy, which is a broadband-first strategy, is we’re still delivering large arrays that can do broadband to phones. And that’s critical,” he stressed.
“We think it’s a big market, and we’ve organised our business around that market being big. So when we talk about market size expectations, we think it’s going to be big. We don’t know how big, but we’re entirely organised as a company around a good outcome on that. And we’re getting ready to launch our constellation. So network deployment is where we’re focused. And revenue generation ramping in 2026 is our next step,” he told delegates. “And I think we’re decades away from a notion where we’re pushed out of marginal economics. This is a land grab, a big build out, however you cut it. And the more assets you have to the party, technology, relationships, spectrum, capital, the better off you are. And the model we’ve always driven is an add-on model, a 50-50 share for add-on revenue.”
“And of the four definitive agreements we’ve signed with AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, and STC of Saudi Arabia, we’ve got a cumulative $1 billion of take-or-pay revenue across those contract,” noted Wisniewski. “So we think that an add-on business model is a smart way to go for a broadband product. And we think that the value is there for the customer to pay. At the moment, where we’re starting the contractual and commercial journey, it’s with an add-on product, which you see across the evolution of decades of the wireless industry, including with today’s international passport model when you land abroad. So that’s, I think, a smart way to start to build this product out. It aligns interest across revenue generation, churn reduction through customer satisfaction, and brand marketing frankly. So I think that’s a smart way to do it. It’s a smart way to align interests. And it’s how we’ll always attack the problem.”
“We’re hoping to operate in a world that has $6 billion phones in it. So the ecosystem approach is totally different than you might see in a fixed broadband business. And from the outset, our approach is very mobile network operator-centric. But we have investments from American Tower, the Intel company, who invested twice. We have investments from Google, who has the largest operating system with 3 billion Android users in the history of mankind. But on top of the mobile network operator approach, that’s really where we’ve made our bet, because we think that’s where the services TAM is,” Wisniewski concluded.
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