I am skeptical AST will be able to really compete. SpaceX has a massive cost advantage.

I hope that they will, but the engineers at SpaceX have made me a believer. If the gen 1 direct to cell sats don’t perform (it seems like they do), they’ll just launch another batch a couple weeks later. I don’t think AST will have this ability, so I hope they get it right.

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