Satcom

Earlier this week, Kepler (an optical comms relay business) launched its first ten 300-kg sats and announced a deal with OroraTech, to host its thermal sensors and speed up downlink via its laser-linked routing.

Some of that spectrum still sits in legacy hands, ripe for acquisition.

This is an article that we have been wanting to write for a while, and figured it’s high time we talk about the elephant in the room: AST SpaceMobile’s $27B market cap.

Comparing the before and after submissions from the small sample size suggests the impact of the change provided a significant bump to LEO providers, although fiber predictably still took the lion’s share.

Starlink may be the clear leader today, but the market is underpricing the threat of Kuiper. If history is any guide, Amazon tends to enter markets late, absorb the upfront losses, weaponize its balance sheet, and win through scale, patience, and integration.

Companies that can beam down fiber-like internet speeds graduate from the niche legacy satcom market to the generalized consumer broadband internet market.

Once upon a time, fixed broadband was Viasat’s second-largest end market.

Fast forward five years, and that $10B number seemed to be more of a nice round number for Amazon to throw out into the ether, rather than a diligently thought-out budget.