@moselmeister — I appreciate the detailed response, but I want to address something for the benefit of anyone reading this thread who’s new to ASTS, because there are several structural misunderstandings here that could lead someone astray.
On the business model
You suggest that working with MNOs limits ASTS to “exigent use cases.” This misreads the business model entirely. ASTS operates on a revenue-sharing model with MNOs — generally structured at approximately 50/50. The MNO keeps half the subscriber revenue but bears all customer acquisition, billing, marketing, and support costs. ASTS keeps the other half with a cost base limited primarily to satellite capex and maintenance — which is why the company projects 90%+ EBITDA margins at scale. The MNO keeps its customer relationship, its billing relationship, and its brand. ASTS is the infrastructure layer. The partnership model is not a ceiling on TAM — it’s a go-to-market strategy that creates carrier dependency, which is a structural moat, not a weakness.
On Starlink being “cheaper without carrier profit sharing”
This gets the economics backwards — and it applies equally to Starlink today. ASTS operates on a ~50/50 revenue share where MNOs pay ASTS for satellite access from their subscriber revenues. Starlink’s Direct to Cell service with T-Mobile uses the exact same structure — T-Mobile pays SpaceX a share of subscriber revenue. So Starlink is no cheaper from a carrier revenue-sharing standpoint — at least not today.
The implied argument here seems to be a future state: Starlink eventually displaces MNOs entirely, acts as its own carrier, and undercuts everyone on price. That scenario deserves a direct answer. First, regulatory reality: acting as an MNO requires spectrum licenses in every jurisdiction globally — a process that takes years and faces fierce incumbent opposition. Second, strategic reality: the moment SpaceX formally positions itself as an MNO competitor, it loses every existing carrier partnership overnight and faces coordinated regulatory resistance from the most powerful telecom lobbies in the world. Third, and most importantly — this is precisely the threat that has driven 52 MNOs representing 3.2 billion subscribers toward ASTS. The MNO community is not blind to Elon Musk’s ambitions. They are actively hedging against them by building out a competing satellite infrastructure that they control the commercial relationship with. ASTS is the hedge. That’s not a weakness — that’s the entire thesis.
On the TAM and “you have to be in the middle of nowhere”
This is the most consequential factual error in your post, especially for new readers who might take it at face value. You are confusing population-weighted coverage with geographic coverage. Yes, a high percentage of the global population lives within reach of a cell tower. But roughly 85% of Earth’s surface has no broadband coverage — that’s the ITU’s figure, not a bull’s talking point. Oceans, coastlines, aviation routes, maritime shipping lanes, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, rural Latin America — these aren’t fringe edge cases. They represent enormous, monetizable demand that terrestrial infrastructure will never economically reach.
And since you mention you’ve travelled extensively — think about something closer to home than Tanzania: dropped calls in tunnels, dead zones on highways, lost signal in a valley, a disconnected call between cities. These aren’t edge cases either. Once ASTS’s constellation is fully deployed, your existing phone with your existing SIM seamlessly hands off to satellite and back — without you ever noticing. MNOs will package that as a premium tier. Frequent travellers will pay for it. That’s a TAM hiding in plain sight, and it doesn’t require anyone to be in the middle of nowhere.
On the sequential phases
You quote the Kook Report on ASTS’s long-term ambition to supplement terrestrial coverage and then ask: “why work with carriers then?” — as if this is a contradiction. It isn’t. It’s a sequence. Phase 1: monetize coverage gaps, underserved markets, and enterprise/maritime verticals. Phase 2: as satellite unit economics improve and constellation density grows, become a meaningful supplemental layer even in covered areas. Amazon didn’t disrupt all of retail on day one either. The fact that a company articulates a long-term vision larger than its current footprint isn’t a red flag — it’s called a roadmap.
On the valuation
$36B market cap against $70M revenue sounds damning. But trailing revenue is the wrong lens for an infrastructure company in year one of commercial operation — and I’d challenge you to find a single infrastructure buildout that has ever been valued that way. The relevant numbers are: $70.9M in 2025 → $150–200M guided for 2026 → $1B target for 2027. That’s a company scaling from launch to commercial maturity, not a company flatlining. The dilution that accompanied it funded satellite deployment — those are the assets now generating that revenue ramp. The question is whether per-share economics improve as revenue scales. The guidance says yes. And the contractual foundation is already there: as of the Q4 2025 earnings release on March 2nd, ASTS has secured over $1.2 billion in aggregate contracted revenue commitments from commercial partners — including a $175 million prepayment from stc Group under a 10-year regional agreement. Half of the 2026 pipeline is already under contract. That’s not speculation — that’s booked.
On your final question — “are you even buying more?”
Peter Lynch’s most cited investment principle is that the best stock to buy is the one you already own — meaning if you hold a position without conviction to sell, you are effectively reaffirming your buy thesis at today’s price every single day. It’s a basic concept. Asking whether I’m “buying more” as a rhetorical challenge is a framing trick, not a fundamental question. Conviction in a thesis and tactical position sizing are two different things.
One last observation
You mentioned you’re “not a Starlink or Tesla bull” and haven’t analyzed SpaceX’s fundamentals — but Starlink is your primary counter-argument throughout this post. You can’t simultaneously disclaim expertise in a competitor and use that competitor as your central bear thesis. That’s not skepticism. That’s just noise.
For anyone genuinely evaluating ASTS: the bull case isn’t that this is a sure thing. Early-stage infrastructure investing never is. The bull case is that the technical moat is real (phased array antenna technology that no one else has at scale), the carrier partnerships are contractually binding with $1.2B+ in committed revenue, and the addressable market is legitimately global. Apply the right framework before you apply a verdict.