SpaceX blames European hostility on AST’s ‘misinformation campaign’

According to SpaceX, its satellite rival AST SpaceMobile is conducting a “misinformation campaign” against SpaceX and the company’s efforts to connect T-Mobile’s customers to SpaceX satellites.

In a new filing with the FCC, SpaceX urged American regulators to ignore “foreign investors and partners in AST’s meme-stock” and to approve SpaceX’s out-of-band emissions waiver request.

“As recent events have demonstrated, supplemental coverage from satellite operators cannot come fast enough to provide communications during natural disasters and support first responders,” SpaceX wrote, nodding to T-Mobile’s recent test of SpaceX-powered emergency alerts. “AST and its investors continue their scorched-Earth campaign to hamstring competing direct-to-cellular operations, even if their efforts mean that Americans cannot reliably connect during emergencies and American satellite systems stand at a competitive disadvantage in international markets.”

The white-hot rhetoric from SpaceX helps to highlight the growing battle over phone-to-satellite connections and the large and growing number of companies hoping to profit from such links.

European opposition

SpaceX’s new filing comes just days after a handful of Europe’s biggest wireless network operators – including Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone – jointly filed a letter to the FCC. In the letter, the operators urged American regulators to reject SpaceX’s out-of-band emissions waiver request.

“We welcome the prospects of supplemental coverage from space, and the leadership the FCC has shown in this area, but in the interests of Europe’s mobile customers, network operators and service providers, D2D [direct-to-device] solutions must respect the established -120 dBW/m2/MHz limit, and satellite providers must work to comply with this requirement before they could be authorised,” the operators wrote.

Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone and other European network operators also hinted at the possibility of a lawsuit if SpaceX ultimately gets its way.

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