Direct-to-device satellite communications firm AST SpaceMobile has secured $306.5 million in funding from AT&T, Google and Vodafone, comprising grants, loans, shares and other debt structures. “With our first five commercial satellites fully-funded, last year we turned our attention to building and launching the next-generation BlueBirds, which are designed for a 10x improvement in throughput,” AST said. Vodafone, Rakuten, American Tower and Bell Canada together own over 20% of the firm.. Finnish telco Elisa will buy a majority stake in Moontalk Oy, the software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm, for an undisclosed sum, Elisa plans to become ‘Finland’s most trusted partner for digitalizing business processes.’ Ericsson bemoaned poor vendor acquisition rates this week and said it expects more decline in RAN spending in 2024…