AST SpaceMobile has acquired prime S-band spectrum with the aim of competing more strongly in the expanding global IoT market on top of its much-touted focus on D2D (Direct to Device) smartphone connectivity to plug coverage gaps. The company competes with Elon Musk’s Starlink SpaceX service and Amazon’s emerging Project Kuiper for the provision of data services from LEO constellations. The S-band is already widely used for a range of telemetry and monitoring services and is well placed to enhance AST SpaceMobile’s existing holdings at higher frequencies, and in particular, serve global IoT use cases. The S-band acquisition will give the operator access to at least an additional 45 MHz of spectrum, not by itself a massive holding but ample…