Week of January 6–11, 2025Telecom Intelligence: Week of January 6, 2025
The year opened with a spectrum coup, a customer promise, and the annual Las Vegas hardware pilgrimage. AST SpaceMobile started 2025 by securing long-term access to up to 45 megahertz of premium L-band spectrum through a deal with bankrupt Ligado Networks, paying 550 million dollars to give its satellite constellation something no direct-to-device rival owns: dedicated licensed spectrum of its own. AT&T launched the AT&T Guarantee, promising automatic bill credits for network outages across wireless and fiber, a first among the majors and a direct response to its damaging 2024 outage. And CES 2025 wrapped in Las Vegas with AI stitched into everything, from Nvidia's consumer superchips to connected cars, all of it presuming ubiquitous connectivity someone has to sell.