A Delaware bankruptcy court on June 23rd approved the long-term acquisition by AST SpaceMobile (AST) of Ligado’s L-band spectrum over North America.
The judge, Thomas Horan, was brief in saying, “I am going to grant the motion today. The motion is granted.”
The motion in question was that AST would pay $568 million (€490 million) to Ligado, which in itself will allow Ligado to settle its outstanding debts to London-based satellite operator Inmarsat. Inmarsat is owned by Viasat of California.
Despite this confirmation, the road is not entirely clear because Ligado’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reconstruction has to be approved by the bankruptcy court. That reconstruction will see Ligado slash nearly $8 billion in debt from its obligations, leaving just $1.2 billion and launch a new era of space-based broadband connectivity. The formal hearing to sanction the changes and the reconstruction will be heard in mid-July and is now seen as a formality.
Ligado would then be obligated to begin making quarterly payments to Inmarsat of around $16 million from September 30th for the radio spectrum, which sits adjacent to Ligado’s spectrum, to form a contiguous area of L-band over North America.
Combined with cellular spectrum from partners AT&T and Verizon, AST SpaceMobile said the frequencies would support broadband speeds of up to 120 megabits/second for unmodified smartphones beyond the reach of terrestrial networks across the US. In addition, Inmarsat agrees to provide its affirmative support of AST SpaceMobile’s planned regulatory applications with the FCC in the US and Canadian regulators seeking authority to operate a Non-GSO system within the L-Band mid-band spectrum over North America.
The North America settlement is excellent news for all concerned as must be the ending of litigation. However, AST has its eves on European spectrum to add to the spectrum it already controls. Around 2027, some 2 GHz of spectrum over Europe could become available. If this happens, then it will help secure greater bandwidth for AST in its plans for satellite-based broadband.
