{"id":6457,"date":"2026-10-10T00:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T00:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/10\/ast-spacemobile-extends-slide-to-14-after-spacex-takes-the\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T00:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T00:44:17","slug":"ast-spacemobile-extends-slide-to-14-after-spacex-takes-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/10\/ast-spacemobile-extends-slide-to-14-after-spacex-takes-the\/","title":{"rendered":"AST SpaceMobile Extends Slide to 14% After SpaceX Takes the\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

AST SpaceMobile shares extended their selloff Friday after SpaceX<\/a> agreed to buy the nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio that AST had also shown interest in acquiring.<\/p>\n

ASTS was trading around $49.13 at 12:53 p.m. ET on October 9, down 13.7% from Thursday’s $56.93 close, after falling as low as $47.57. The stock had already dropped 6.1% during Thursday’s regular session and then slid roughly another 4% after hours when the SpaceX-Grain Management transaction was announced.<\/p>\n

Grain said October 8 that SpaceX had entered a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of its nationwide 800 MHz portfolio. The transaction still requires Federal Communications Commission approval and other customary closing conditions.<\/p>\n

FinanceFeeds covered the same transaction from the SpaceX and U.S. carrier side earlier Friday<\/a>, including the sharp response in Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.<\/p>\n

AST Had Been Interested in the Grain Spectrum<\/h2>\n

AST’s exposure to the news is more direct than simply being another satellite company competing with Starlink.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg reported in August, citing people familiar with the discussions, that both SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile<\/a> had expressed interest in acquiring Grain’s 800 MHz licenses. Those frequencies are attractive for direct-to-device services because low-band spectrum provides wide coverage and stronger building penetration.<\/p>\n

SpaceX ultimately secured the deal.<\/p>\n

That does not cancel AST’s existing commercial relationships with AT&T and Verizon. AT&T has a definitive commercial agreement with AST for space-based cellular broadband, while Verizon signed its own commercial agreement for direct-to-cellular AST service. T-Mobile, by contrast, currently uses SpaceX’s Starlink for its satellite connectivity offering.<\/p>\n

Why Ligado Is Now the Asset to Watch<\/h2>\n

AST also has a separate spectrum arrangement with Ligado Networks, and that is where telecom analyst Roger Entner says attention should now turn.<\/p>\n

Entner, who had predicted a Starlink-Grain transaction in August, told Stocktwits after Thursday’s announcement that “Ligado is next.” That is his assessment, not an announced transaction or evidence that AST’s Ligado deal is changing.<\/p>\n

AST’s existing agreement gives it long-term access to as much as 45 MHz of lower mid-band spectrum in the United States and Canada for direct-to-device satellite applications.<\/p>\n

According to AST’s SEC filings, closing requires regulatory approvals and other conditions. AST would pay Ligado approximately $550 million at closing and then at least $80 million annually for L-band spectrum usage rights, alongside long-term revenue-sharing arrangements.<\/p>\n

The Grain loss therefore removes one potential spectrum path without removing AST’s broader spectrum strategy.<\/p>\n

AT&T and Verizon Still Have a Reason to Back AST<\/h2>\n

Entner also pointed to the recently formed satellite venture involving AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, describing the carriers’ objective as wanting “an open standard, not an Elon standard.”<\/p>\n

Again, that is Entner’s interpretation. What is established is that the carriers’ existing satellite agreements remain in place, meaning AT&T and Verizon retain their AST relationships while T-Mobile continues working with Starlink.<\/p>\n

The question for AST investors is now whether Ligado and its carrier partnerships can provide enough spectrum depth to offset the strategic option that disappeared when Grain chose SpaceX.<\/p>\n

That question lands while ASTS<\/a> was already a highly volatile stock. FinanceFeeds’ recent AST SpaceMobile valuation analysis set out a $96 bull case and $44 bear case<\/a>, with satellite deployment pace as the central operating variable.<\/p>\n

Friday’s move has brought the stock much closer to that lower scenario. This time, however, the catalyst is spectrum: SpaceX won an asset AST had considered, while the market is now asking how much strategic weight AST’s still-unclosed Ligado arrangement must carry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AST SpaceMobile shares extended their selloff Friday after SpaceX agreed to buy the nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio that AST had also shown interest in acquiring. ASTS was trading around $49.13 at 12:53 p.m. ET on October 9, down 13.7% from Thursday’s $56.93 close, after falling as low as $47.57. The stock had already dropped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmarkettrends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}