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.
Consolidation went orbital this week. On July 17 SES completed its 3.1 billion dollar acquisition of Intelsat, uniting two of the oldest names in satellite communications into a multi-orbit operator with roughly 120 satellites. On July 14 the Government Accountability Office renewed public pressure on NTIA over unimplemented spectrum management recommendations, warning that federal coordination gaps are slowing the pipeline that feeds commercial wireless. And Ericsson's second quarter results on July 15 showed enterprise 5G momentum steadying the vendor while traditional network sales stayed soft, a snapshot of an equipment market waiting for its next buildout cycle.