AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) is enduring a punishing month, with shares down 33% and on track for their worst monthly performance in over two years.
Despite the steep selloff, recent commentary from T-Mobile and Nokia has offered satellite bulls fresh reasons to hold their conviction in the company’s long-term story.
T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan addressed direct-to-cell technology during earnings, describing satellite connectivity as a complement to terrestrial networks rather than a replacement.
Satellite traffic currently represents just 0.0003% of T-Mobile’s total network usage, a figure Gopalan acknowledged is extremely small relative to the broader network load.
“It’s a really small percentage of the usage on our network,” Gopalan said, but he was clear that the technology’s role will expand meaningfully over time.
“For us, it’s clear that with time, this is no longer going to be a differentiation,” he said. “It’s going to be table stakes as a complementary service to have satellite along with your cellular service.”
Gopalan also discussed the joint venture announced in May by T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, a carrier-led platform designed to pool spectrum and source satellite capacity across multiple providers and devices.
“That’s what drove the JV,” Gopalan said, adding that carriers could still strike separate deals, though T-Mobile expects most capacity to come through the venture.
T-Mobile’s current direct-to-cell service runs through SpaceX’s Starlink, but the JV’s flexible structure could open the door for AST through its existing relationships with AT&T and Verizon.
Nokia, which signed a five-year equipment supply agreement with AST in 2022, also delivered commentary relevant to the satellite company’s network architecture ambitions.
Under the agreement, Nokia supplies AirScale Single RAN equipment for AST’s space-based network, with AST’s gateways connecting to carrier cores through standard 3GPP protocols across 4G, 5G and eventually 6G.
Nokia CEO Justin Hotard described the company’s AI-RAN platform as “a fundamental shift from a hardware-defined radio network to software-defined platforms,” adding that it “fundamentally changes the economics of radio networks.”
Nokia is targeting AI-RAN pilot deployments by the end of 2026, commercial availability in 2027 and spectral-efficiency gains exceeding 100% by 2028.
“A hardware deployment with 100% spectral efficiency improvement, I think the math there speaks for itself,” Hotard said, signaling confidence in the platform’s commercial appeal.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for ASTS slipped to “bearish” from “neutral” levels, with one user calling the stock “an unbelievable bargain at these prices,” while another pointed to oversold RSI conditions as a potential setup for a short squeeze.
ASTS stock has gained just 0.4% over the past year, leaving investors to weigh near-term pressure against what bulls argue is a strengthening long-term thesis.
