Siin on üks väga hea “puust ja punaseks” kirjutis ASTS - MNO teenuste ökonoomiast.
Otselink postitusele Twitteris:
AST attach will be much higher than people expect, and it’s not even close.
"The biggest bear argument against satellite-to-phone is that consumers won’t want to pay more per month. I think that misunderstands how carriers actually think about pricing and bundling.
I don’t think that’s how this actually plays out — and I’m coming at this from having worked inside some of the largest retailers in the world, not from a finance or tech hype angle, but boots on the ground business teams who have built assortments and offers and tracked customer data.
A good historical analog for AST is unlimited texting.
In ~2008–2009, people paid per text. Then unlimited texting started showing up for ~$20/month. A lot of folks thought that was insanely expensive. Why pay $20 for something you might use?
Fast forward ~2 years: unlimited texting was everywhere.
Fast forward to today: it’s almost impossible to find a plan without it.
It didn’t become ubiquitous because consumers demanded it upfront.
It became ubiquitous because operators bundled it, subsidized it, and quietly made the economics work elsewhere.
That’s exactly how I think satellite coverage rolls out.
Here’s how the business folks inside a major carrier will think about it.
When retailers price an offering, we don’t just ask “will people pay for this?”
We ask:
• Does this drive higher-margin attach?
• Does this reduce churn?
• Does this shift spend away from lower-ROI areas?
• Does it change customer behavior in our favor over time?
Think about how we built offers in retail. You don’t just slap a discount on a TV and call it a day. You factor in the whole ecosystem: Will this drive sales of high-margin accessories like cables or mounts? Does it pull more foot traffic into stores, boosting impulse buys? If we throw in a gift card with purchase, we know from data that customers spend about 120% of its face value on average—turning a “loss leader” into a net win. Brand awareness goes up, loyalty sticks, and suddenly you’re not just selling one thing; you’re growing the pie.
Carriers will do the same.
Let’s use rough numbers.
AT&T spends ~$6B/year maintaining copper alone (not fiber). That’s legacy capex. Low ROI. Painful to maintain. Politically hard to shut down — unless you have an alternative.
What if satellite coverage lets you:
• Avoid laying new copper
• Decommission low-use infrastructure
• Shut down or throttle rural towers during off-peak
• Cover dead zones without trucks, permits, or crews
Let’s say satellite saves $2B/year.
AT&T has ~119M subs.
Assume ~30% are on premium plans → ~37.5M users.
That $2B in savings just freed up $56 per year per premium subscriber — or $4.66/month — without raising prices at all.
Now layer in behavior.
With materially better coverage:
• Churn drops
• New subs come in
• Premium plans feel actually premium
So in year one, maybe you don’t raise prices.
In year two, you quietly bump premium plans by $5/month.
Now you’ve created ~$10/month of “economic room”:
• ~$5 goes to the satellite provider
• ~$5 stays with the carrier
That’s ~$2.25B/year flowing to ASTS from one carrier just from premium users.
Now add optional uptake.
Maybe 5% of non-premium subs add “always-on satellite” for $10/month.
That’s another ~$700M/year in revenue.
And here’s the important part:
As more satellites launch, ASICs improve, and speeds go up, that $6B copper spend keeps shrinking. Grok estimates VZ and T each pay $200-500M a year just in roaming expenses to rural MNOs, think what Ligado opens up.
Satellite coverage doesn’t stay a paid add-on forever.
It follows the texting path:
Premium → default → ubiquitous.
Eventually:
• Every plan includes it
• Plan prices creep up over time
• Legacy capex disappears
• Nobody remembers paying “extra” for coverage everywhere
In just this initial scenario, you’re looking at ~$3B/year to the satellite provider from AT&T alone.
Now double it for Verizon.
Then go international.
Then move from premium-only to every subscriber.
This isn’t a “will consumers pay?” story.
It’s a capex substitution + bundling + churn-reduction story — the same playbook retail and telecom operators have used for decades.
That’s why I think satellite attach rates will surprise people on the upside.
Not because consumers are irrational —
but because businesses are very, very good at making the math work."
