{"id":91970,"date":"2026-11-09T18:05:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T10:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rakuten-and-ast-spacemobile-form-2-billion-rakuten-ast-venture-for-japan-sat-to-phone-network\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T18:05:33","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T10:05:33","slug":"rakuten-and-ast-spacemobile-form-2-billion-rakuten-ast-venture-for-japan-sat-to-phone-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rakuten-and-ast-spacemobile-form-2-billion-rakuten-ast-venture-for-japan-sat-to-phone-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile Form $2 Billion &#8220;Rakuten AST&#8221; Venture for Japan Sat-to-Phone Network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The joint venture brings together Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile to pursue a network that links standard mobile handsets to satellites, a capability known as direct-to-device. The commitment ranks among the largest commercial space announcements made this week.<\/p>\n<p>Rakuten AST is the formal name of the new entity. The project carries a valuation of about $2 billion and is supported by as much as 148 billion yen in subsidy. Service is targeted to begin in March 2029. The two partners, Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile, are backing the effort together.<\/p>\n<p>The venture&#8217;s central goal is to allow ordinary phones to connect directly to satellites without specialized equipment. State subsidy forms a significant portion of the funding structure, with Tokyo committing up to 148 billion yen toward the network.<\/p>\n<p>The roughly $2 billion, state-subsidized direct-to-device constellation places Japan firmly into the satellite-to-phone race. For AST SpaceMobile, the deal provides a major anchor market and access to government-backed funding. The announcement stands out as one of the largest commercial space commitments disclosed this week, with national treasury support now entering a field previously driven by private capital.<\/p>\n<p>The venture has set a March 2029 target for service, the key milestone named for the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The joint venture brings together Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile to pursue a network that links standard mobile handsets to satellites, a capability known as direct-to-device. The commitment ranks among the largest commercial space announcements made this week. Rakuten AST is the formal name of the new entity. The project carries a valuation of about $2 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91971,"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-91970","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\/91970"}],"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=91970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}