Wolfe Research Downgrades Charter as Spectrum Internet Losses Mount

Law firms Schall, Brown & Schwartz LLP and Rosen Law Firm have announced securities class action lawsuits against AST SpaceMobile, alleging misleading statements about its capital resources, competitive position and user adoption between March 4, 2025 and July 15, 2026. The cases focus on whether AST SpaceMobile misrepresented its balance of cash, debt and share issuance while scaling its satellite network, raising fresh questions about how robust its funding model really was during this critical buildout phase. The allegations land against the backdrop of the August 2026 launch of BlueBird satellites 11 to 13, which pushed the constellation further toward continuous coverage in initial markets. Before these lawsuits, the most pessimistic analysts already assumed revenue might reach about US$2.1 billion by 2029 while warning that heavy dilution and a possible 7 percent annual share count increase could still leave AST SpaceMobile trading at over 100 times earnings. AST SpaceMobile's narrative projects $2.2 billion revenue and $190.9 million earnings by 2029, requiring 165.5% yearly revenue growth and an $809.7 million earnings increase from -$618.8 million today.

Kiatnakin Phatra Securities said in an analysis dated October 1, 2026, that over the next three to four years low-earth-orbit satellite services, especially Starlink, are unlikely to significantly affect the market share of ground-based telecommunications operators in ASEAN, due to network capacity constraints and prices that remain higher than terrestrial services. Starlink's monthly service fee in Malaysia is about 58% higher than comparable-speed ground broadband, and nearly four times higher in Vietnam. As for direct-to-device, or D2D, satellite-to-handset connectivity, Kiatnakin Phatra sees it serving more as a supplementary service than a replacement, with the potential to support average revenue per user, or ARPU, but over the longer term it will be necessary to watch competition from Starlink more closely, as network capacity will increase significantly by 2030 with the deployment of the Starship rocket and V3 satellites. Since SpaceX's initial public offering in mid-June 2026, about half of ASEAN telecom stocks under Bank of America's coverage have underperformed the market, which Kiatnakin Phatra attributes to factors other than concerns about LEO competition. Its top pick in the ASEAN communications sector is Advanced Info Service, or ADVANC, on the back of an appropriate dividend yield, alongside Globe Telecom, or GLO, Indosat-Hutchison, or ISAT, SingTel, and PT Telkom, or TLKM. Starlink currently operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, but has not yet launched in Thailand because of a rule limiting foreign shareholding in entities granted rights to use ground stations to no more than 49%. OneWeb has already offered fixed broadband services in Thailand since 2025, and Amazon LEO plans to launch services in Indonesia and Thailand in the future.