{"id":48971,"date":"2025-06-16T22:05:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T14:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/viasat-ligado-and-ast-spacemobile-reach-spectrum-deal-in-bankruptcy-case\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T22:05:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T14:05:39","slug":"viasat-ligado-and-ast-spacemobile-reach-spectrum-deal-in-bankruptcy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/viasat-ligado-and-ast-spacemobile-reach-spectrum-deal-in-bankruptcy-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Viasat, Ligado, and AST SpaceMobile Reach Spectrum Deal in Bankruptcy Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ligado Networks<\/strong>, <strong>Viasat<\/strong>, and <strong>AST SpaceMobile<\/strong> have reached a deal over Ligado\u2019s debt to Viasat, and mid-band spectrum for AST SpaceMobile.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Under the deal AST SpaceMobile detailed on Monday, AST SpaceMobile will pay Ligado approximately $550 million, $535 million of which will go to Inmarsat for the rights to the mid-band spectrum.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This comes after Ligado filed for bankruptcy in January while striking a spectrum deal with AST SpaceMobile to give the company L-band mobile satellite spectrum (MSS) spectrum rights in the United States and Canada. Ligado owed debt to Inmarsat, now owned by Viasat, as part of a spectrum agreement between the companies, and sued over that agreement in January.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>AST SpaceMobile said that under the term sheet, Inmarsat will support the company to receive long-term spectrum usage rights to up to 40 MHz of L-band MSS spectrum in the United States and Canada held by Ligado. AST SpaceMobile plans to use the spectrum for direct-to-device satellite applications.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Inmarsat has also agreed to support AST SpaceMobile\u2019s plans to apply for regulatory authority to operate a Non-Geostationary (NGSO) satellite system in the L-band mid-band spectrum in North America.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>AST SpaceMobile agreed to pay $420 million to Inmarsat on Ligado\u2019s behalf on October 31, then $100 million to Inmarsat on March 31, 2026 and $15 million upon receiving regulatory approval and closing of the transaction. AST SpaceMobile has received a financing commitment to support the payments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For AST SpaceMobile, this gives the company access to mid-band satellite spectrum for D2D services, in addition to its plans with mobile network operators to use terrestrial spectrum for D2D.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat reported in a June 13 release that it expects to receive $568 million from Ligado in fiscal year 2026. Ligado will also make quarterly payments of around $16 million starting on Sept. 30.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The deal is subject to approval by Ligado\u2019s bankruptcy court. The deal includes that Ligado\u2019s lawsuit against Inmarsat is stayed and will be dismissed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat said its ability to provide MSS globally is \u201cunaffected\u201d and the company has a \u201ccontinued commitment to facilitate innovation that enables new MSS services.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ligado Networks, Viasat, and AST SpaceMobile have reached a deal over Ligado\u2019s debt to Viasat, and mid-band spectrum for AST SpaceMobile.&nbsp; Under the deal AST SpaceMobile detailed on Monday, AST SpaceMobile will pay Ligado approximately $550 million, $535 million of which will go to Inmarsat for the rights to the mid-band spectrum.&nbsp; This comes after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}