Two days after losing a satellite on the launch pad of ambition, AST SpaceMobile got the piece of paper it has chased for years: on April 21 the FCC granted commercial authority for the company to deliver direct-to-device cellular broadband from space across the United States, clearing a 248-satellite constellation and moving satellite-to-phone service from experiment to product. The same week, AT&T opened big-carrier earnings season with strong first quarter results built on bundled fiber and wireless, and Nokia closed out the vendor picture with its own first quarter report. Regulatory green lights, healthy carrier economics, and a recovering equipment market: the industry's spring is running warmer than its winter did.
A week that ended with a jolt. On Sunday morning, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket delivered its reusable booster back to a landing ship but left AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite in an orbit too low to save, a costly setback for the company racing to build a direct-to-device constellation. Earlier in the week, Ericsson opened the network equipment earnings season with results that showed currency headwinds masking real underlying growth, and the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau refreshed the Covered List, the government's roster of communications equipment deemed a national security risk. Space ambition, vendor economics, and security policy all in one week, which is roughly the modern telecom industry in miniature.
The satellite race answered back, and the spectrum pipeline formally opened. Verizon completed its first satellite-to-cellular video call using AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird satellites on February 24, a direct riposte to T-Mobile's Starlink Super Bowl moment and proof the AST camp can do more than text. At its February 27 meeting the FCC adopted the upper C-band Notice of Inquiry and AWS-3 auction procedures, converting agenda promises into live proceedings and starting the clock on the next mid-band supply wave. And EchoStar closed the books on a difficult 2024, reporting Boost Mobile subscriber progress amid shrinking revenue and the debt overhang that would define its dramatic year ahead.
T-Mobile used the year's biggest stage to make satellite texting a mass-market product. In a Super Bowl commercial on February 9, the carrier announced its Starlink-powered direct-to-device beta was open to everyone, including Verizon and AT&T customers, free until July, an audacious play that turned a network feature into a customer acquisition funnel running inside rival subscriber bases. Within a day, both rivals rushed out their own satellite messaging talking points. In Espoo, Nokia reached outside telecom entirely for its next chief executive, naming Intel data center and AI chief Justin Hotard to replace Pekka Lundmark, the clearest statement yet that the vendor sees its future in AI infrastructure rather than radio access alone.