After seeing this post, I went over to the ATS subreddit to see how they’re tracking the news. The denial is palpable.

What do you mean compete?

In the US SpaceX just announced a contract with Tmobile, AST has contracts with Verizon and AT&T

For service it works, and for business viability AST just has to launch more satellites, which they will

for a business case thats their only overhead cost and they dont need cellular partnerships in a bunch of countries to be viable

They have to raise capital for more satellites but it all looks possible