Steve Profile picture
Masshole living in the DC area. Attorney. Small L Libertarian. Thoughts are my own and not that of my employer or my family. Not legal or financial advice.
Sep 20 19 tweets 4 min read
$ASTS: There have been a lot of questions on here about what will happen with the FCC / Starlink situation if Trump is elected and Elon is given a voice in the Trump Administration. For several reasons, the answer is not much will change if Trump is elected. $ASTS: The biggest reason is structural and statutory limits on the President’s power to oversee the FCC. And by structural limitations, I mean the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution. Ever heard of it?
Aug 17 20 tweets 5 min read
The Starlink disinformation war is in full swing. A quick thread on what is actually going on at the FCC and an explanation why STARLINK -- not Verizon or AT&T -- is actually the legacy player trying to catch up to innovation...

$asts I'll start with a brief reminder that I am not an FCC lawyer and none of what I am saying constitutes legal or financial advice. I'm merely a lawyer conducting my own research, which is something you should do as well. My opinions are my own.

$asts
Aug 13 8 tweets 2 min read
I believe $asts is close to obtaining a regulatory moat for four reasons.

1) industry backing. When a new and potentially lucrative industry emerges, you see usually see a rush to regulate it and implement favorable regulations, creating barriers to entry (see meta w/ AI). Typically, small companies like $asts don’t want regulation because these barriers to entry are costly. But $asts isn’t a typical small company — it is an industry project backed by some of the biggest companies in the world. This allows $asts to powerfully lobby regulators.
Aug 13 10 tweets 2 min read
$ASTS: Yesterday, SpaceX filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC. The Petition asks the FCC to amend 47 CFR 25.289 and 25.146 to ease the EPFD limits. Even if successful, I don’t foresee SpaceX securing commercial approval anytime soon.



🧵fcc.gov/ecfs/document/… $ASTS: To start, SpaceX has requested a waiver of these limits in a separate filing. But I don’t believe that SpaceX would be filing the Petition if it believed this waiver request would be successful. SpaceX has interference issues, and it needs the rules to be changed.