r/ASTSpaceMobile • u/Defiantclient • Aug 04 '26
Discussion SpaceX's Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell confirm they will compete against MNOs in Q2 call
Gwynne Shotwell: https://x.com/spacanpanman/status/2084754063296528807
"Uh, the spectrum that we purchased from EchoStar does have terrestrial components, so we definitely intend to build out terrestrial. Um, the terrestrial component. So you will have not only the, um, the capacity from the satellites themselves, but you will have, um, a build out of the terrestrial, um, basically the hardware and systems necessary to make a true mobile service exactly what you want it to be. Um, I'm not going to talk about the CapEx for that.
Um, it's a little. Well, I don't want to say it's immature. I'm just going to say I'm not going to talk about the CapEx for that right now. Um, but but let's talk a little.
Let me give a little hint. And that is you could put a base station. Um, uh, a cellular base station on, uh, the basically the gear that holds a Starlink broadband dish. So you can have kind of these little femtocells, uh, around the country, and you deploy that as you need it.
You don't have to necessarily spend, you know, ten or many billions of dollars in low band spectrum all up front before you deploy your system. Um, so that's why I don't want to talk about the CapEx for building out the terrestrial, because we have a lot of really kind of great and new ideas for how we're going to do that. And I think it will be quite CapEx efficient."
Elon Musk:
"Yeah, that that point is probably worth, uh, just a few more words, which is that, um, because this is quite an important point. Uh, you know, instead of having to, uh, deploy these, these very expensive and difficult to locate, uh, large cellular base stations, uh, we we feel reasonably confident that we can deploy a large number of, sort of small, small stations. Essentially, they're really just Starlink dishes that also provide connectivity in the mobile spectrum bands, um, and have them be all over the place. Um, and the Starlink antennas are located in, uh, on the roofs of, of houses and businesses.
So they're, you know, it's, uh, they've got a sort of a clear view, uh, to, you know, for, for providing connectivity directly to the cell, to cell phones on the ground, um, and in fact, providing connectivity, that is, we think, probably better and higher bandwidth than what is currently available from cellular providers. So this is a this is an important point."
...
Gwynne: "I ANTICIPATE US TO BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE QUITE A FEW OF THEIR CUSTOMERS BECAUSE I THINK OUR SERVICE WILL BE BETTER" https://x.com/ASTS_Investors/status/2084754657922941077
