Abel Avellan: The Engineer Taking the Cellphone to Space
There are entrepreneurs who build another app, another delivery service, another company selling something people already have.
Then there is Abel Avellan.
The Venezuelan-born engineer has spent much of his career thinking about a problem that sounds almost like science fiction: What if your ordinary cellphone could connect to the internet from space, without needing a special satellite phone?
That idea is now the foundation of AST SpaceMobile, the Texas-based company Avellan founded in 2017. Its ambition is enormous, build a space-based cellular broadband network capable of connecting standard smartphones directly to satellites, particularly in places where traditional cell towers cannot reach.
And yes, there is an interesting Elon Musk subplot.
Because while Musk’s SpaceX is building Starlink into one of the world’s dominant satellite communications networks, Avellan is pursuing a somewhat different route to the same general destination, keeping people connected from space.
In other words, the satellite business just got another very ambitious Venezuelan-American entrepreneur in the arena.
From Venezuela to the World of Engineering
Avellan was born in Venezuela and trained as an electrical engineer at Simón Bolívar University, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. After college, he moved into the telecommunications industry and worked for Swedish communications giant Ericsson.
That early experience was important because Avellan was not simply approaching satellites as a businessman looking for the next hot technology. He was approaching them as an engineer.
He spent more than two decades working in satellite communications and became an inventor on dozens of U.S. patents involving satellite communications technology. His professional path eventually took him from engineering into entrepreneurship, where he began looking beyond what the existing telecommunications industry was doing.
And that is where the story gets interesting.
Avellan wasn’t content to simply work inside the satellite industry. He wanted to build companies inside it.
His First Big Bet, Emerging Markets Communications
Around 2000, Avellan founded Emerging Markets Communications, commonly known as EMC.
According to Forbes, Avellan reportedly started the company with about $50,000 and a pregnant wife, an unusually high-stakes combination of entrepreneurship and family responsibility. His objective was to provide satellite communications to places and industries that could not depend on traditional terrestrial infrastructure.
EMC focused on satellite-based communications for customers including maritime operators and other mobile industries. Its services eventually reached customers such as the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. State Department and the United Nations.
The business grew substantially.
By the time Global Eagle Entertainment agreed to acquire EMC in 2016, EMC had become a major satellite communications provider serving mobility markets around the world. The transaction was valued at approximately $550 million.
That sale was more than a lucrative exit.
It gave Avellan something arguably more important, capital, credibility and a proven track record for building communications infrastructure businesses.
He subsequently served as president and chief strategy officer of Global Eagle before leaving in 2017.
And instead of retiring to Florida and enjoying the fruits of a successful exit, Avellan essentially looked at the next technological mountain and said, “Let’s climb that one.”
Why AST SpaceMobile?
Avellan founded AST, originally known as AST & Science, in 2017.
The idea was radically ambitious, build a satellite network that could connect directly to ordinary mobile phones.
Think about that for a moment.
Traditional satellite communications historically required specialized equipment. AST’s proposition was different. The company wanted to make the cellphone already sitting in your pocket capable of communicating with satellites.
No giant satellite dish.
No special satellite phone.
No complicated new consumer hardware.
The company’s technology is designed to connect standard mobile devices directly to satellites and provide broadband connectivity in areas outside the reach of terrestrial cellular networks.
The potential market is enormous because the world already has billions of mobile phones.
Instead of asking consumers to buy a new device, AST’s strategy is essentially, take the network to the phone.
That is a deceptively simple idea wrapped inside an extraordinarily complicated engineering problem.
The SpaceMobile Vision
AST SpaceMobile is building a constellation of large satellites known as BlueBirds.
The satellites are designed to communicate directly with ordinary smartphones, allowing mobile operators to extend coverage into places where conventional towers cannot economically or physically reach.
That could mean rural communities, deserts, mountains, oceans, disaster zones and other locations where terrestrial infrastructure is limited.
It also has an obvious humanitarian dimension.
Avellan has repeatedly framed the mission around connecting billions of people who remain underserved or unconnected. He has also served as a commissioner of the United Nations Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, where digital inclusion is a central theme.
But this isn’t charity disguised as a space program.
There is potentially a gigantic commercial business underneath it.
AST has built relationships with major telecommunications companies, including AT&T, Verizon and Vodafone, among others. Verizon has also announced plans involving AST’s space-based cellular technology.
The strategy is clever.
Rather than trying to replace Verizon, AT&T and other wireless companies, AST can potentially become the satellite layer that helps them extend their existing networks.
Avellan isn’t necessarily trying to steal the cellphone customer.
He’s trying to make sure that cellphone still works when the customer wanders beyond the tower.
The Elon Musk Connection
Now we get to the fun part.
Mention satellites, smartphones and internet connectivity, and eventually somebody says two words:
Elon Musk.
Musk’s SpaceX has built Starlink into a massive satellite communications business, and SpaceX is increasingly moving into direct-to-cell services through Starlink.
AST SpaceMobile and Starlink therefore occupy overlapping territory.
Both are trying to solve a similar fundamental problem, how to extend connectivity beyond the reach of traditional cellular infrastructure by using satellites.
But their approaches have important differences.
Starlink’s traditional business has been focused heavily on satellite broadband delivered through dedicated Starlink equipment. Its direct-to-cell strategy is now expanding the company’s ambitions toward ordinary mobile devices.
AST, meanwhile, was designed around the direct-to-smartphone concept from the beginning.
That makes Avellan’s company one of the more interesting competitors in the emerging direct-to-device satellite market.
The competition is no longer theoretical.
Recent industry coverage has increasingly described AST as a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink, while AST has continued building relationships with major wireless carriers.
There is also a delicious bit of irony here.
AST has actually used SpaceX rockets to launch some of its satellites.
So, in the strange economics of the new space race, one company can literally help launch a competitor’s spacecraft.
That’s business in the 21st century, apparently even outer space has subcontractors.
But Avellan Isn’t Trying to Become Elon Musk
There is another important distinction.
Musk has built SpaceX around a much broader space ecosystem, rockets, satellites, launch infrastructure, Starlink and ambitions extending well beyond telecommunications.
Avellan’s focus is considerably narrower.
His specialty is communications.
His bet is that satellite technology can become an extension of the world’s existing cellular networks rather than a completely separate consumer ecosystem.
That could give AST an interesting position.
The company can work with established wireless operators instead of necessarily trying to replace them.
In fact, AST’s relationships with carriers are central to its strategy. The company has agreements and relationships involving major telecommunications players around the world, giving it access to potentially billions of subscribers.
The Billion-Dollar Question, How Rich Is Abel Avellan?
Avellan’s wealth is largely tied to his ownership stake in AST SpaceMobile, which means his net worth can move dramatically with the company’s stock price.
And it has.
Forbes reported Avellan’s real-time net worth at approximately $4.6 billion as of September 10, 2026, placing him among the world’s billionaires. Forbes also listed his 2026 wealth at approximately $5.7 billion in its America’s Richest Immigrants ranking.
The difference illustrates an important point, billionaire net worth isn’t the same thing as money sitting in a checking account.
Avellan owns a substantial stake in AST.
An SEC filing from June 2026 showed him beneficially owning approximately 78.25 million shares, representing about 20.8% of the company’s Class A shares.
So when AST’s stock rises, Avellan’s paper fortune can rise by hundreds of millions of dollars. When the stock falls, the billionaire scoreboard can get considerably less flattering.
Welcome to the glamorous world of publicly traded entrepreneurship.
From $50,000 to Billions
Perhaps the most compelling part of Avellan’s story isn’t the satellites.
It’s the progression.
A Venezuelan engineering student becomes a telecommunications engineer.
The engineer becomes an entrepreneur.
The entrepreneur starts a satellite communications company.
That company is sold for $550 million.
Instead of walking away, Avellan takes his experience and capital and launches another company, this time aiming at a much bigger technological challenge.
Today, AST SpaceMobile is attempting to build an entirely new layer of the global communications infrastructure.
And the timing could hardly be more interesting.
For decades, telecommunications meant towers, cables, fiber and terrestrial networks.
Now the industry is looking upward.
Satellites are becoming part of the cellular network itself.
The Risk Behind the Big Dream
Of course, there is a giant difference between having a brilliant idea and building a commercially successful satellite constellation.
AST faces enormous engineering, financing, regulatory and launch challenges.
The company has already experienced delays. In July 2026, AST pushed its target for reaching roughly 45 satellites in orbit to early 2027, while reporting plans to raise approximately $1 billion to support launch capacity and potential acquisitions.
That is the reality of space entrepreneurship.
The PowerPoint presentation may say “global connectivity.”
The engineering department says, “How much does this satellite weigh?”
The finance department says, “How much does it cost?”
And the launch schedule says, “Try again.”
AST’s challenge is therefore not simply beating Starlink.
It must successfully build enough satellites, secure spectrum and regulatory approvals, launch the spacecraft, establish reliable service and make the economics work at scale.
That’s a very long checklist.
The Bigger Picture
What makes Abel Avellan fascinating is that he isn’t a newcomer trying to cash in on the latest space craze.
He has spent more than 25 years in satellite communications.
He built EMC from an early-stage company into a substantial international satellite communications business, sold it for $550 million, and then put his energy into an even more ambitious concept.
AST SpaceMobile represents the second major chapter of that entrepreneurial story.
The first chapter connected ships, aircraft, governments and businesses.
The second is trying to connect people wherever they are.
If Avellan succeeds, the significance could extend far beyond his personal fortune.
Imagine hiking deep into the mountains and still having broadband.
A ship crossing an ocean and remaining connected.
Emergency workers communicating after a hurricane destroys cellular towers.
A village without a traditional tower suddenly becoming part of the global mobile network.
That is the real pitch behind SpaceMobile.
And somewhere along the way, a Venezuelan-born electrical engineer who started his first company with $50,000 found himself in an unlikely position, sitting across the table from some of the biggest names in technology and space.
Including Elon Musk.
The space race has officially become a cellular race.
And Abel Avellan intends to make sure your cellphone gets a seat on the rocket.
