Four themes defined the week ending August 28, 2026. First, the AI networking buildout is now the single biggest driver in the equipment group: Semtech posted a large beat and raise on data center connectivity demand and finished the week up 5.8 percent, while Cisco pushed its NVIDIA Secure AI Factory architecture into the rack scale era. Second, satellite pure plays sold off hard, with AST SpaceMobile down 15.4 percent and Viasat down 9.0 percent, even as the newly public SpaceX gained 3.3 percent. The market is paying for constellations already in orbit and generating revenue, and discounting the ones still building. Third, US carriers rallied together on what looks like a rate and yield driven move rather than any company specific catalyst. Fourth, consolidation continues to reshape the satellite group, with two of the six names we track now trading primarily on acquisition spreads rather than fundamentals.
Performance table
Prices are the latest available closes as of Friday, August 28, 2026. The baseline for weekly change is the Friday, August 21, 2026 close. August 21 was a normal trading day, so no holiday adjustment was needed.
US Carriers
| Company | Ticker | Latest Price | Week Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| AT&T | T | $26.02 | +2.9% |
| Verizon | VZ | $50.08 | +1.3% |
| T-Mobile US | TMUS | $181.38 | down 0.9% |
T-Mobile traded ex dividend $1.02 on August 28. Adjusted for that payout, the week was roughly flat rather than negative.
Router & Equipment Makers
| Company | Ticker | Latest Price | Week Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ericsson (Cradlepoint parent) | ERIC | $9.95 | down 2.6% |
| Semtech (Sierra Wireless parent) | SMTC | $131.25 | +5.8% |
| Digi International | DGII | $75.40 | +0.7% |
| Netgear | NTGR | $21.30 | +1.3% |
| Inseego | INSG | $4.40 | +0.2% |
| Cisco (Meraki) | CSCO | $109.93 | down 1.0% |
| Plover Bay (Peplink parent) | 1523.HK | HK$7.43 | +1.4% |
Two approximations in this group. Inseego’s August 28 close was not published by our data sources at press time, so $4.40 is the confirmed August 27 close. Plover Bay trades in Hong Kong, which closes well before the US session, and sources disagreed on whether HK$7.43 is the August 27 or August 28 close, so treat that row as the most recent available HK close.
Satellite & Emerging
| Company | Ticker | Latest Price | Week Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| AST SpaceMobile | ASTS | $58.05 | down 15.4% |
| Iridium | IRDM | $46.66 | down 4.7% |
| Globalstar | GSAT | $81.89 | down 0.6% |
| EchoStar | ECHO | $85.71 | down 1.3% |
| Viasat | VSAT | $67.98 | down 9.0% |
| SpaceX | SPCX | $141.50 | +3.3% |
Stories behind the moves
US Carriers
All three carriers moved together on Friday in what looks like a macro and rate driven trade rather than a response to company news. Barron’s flagged Verizon among a small group of dividend payers now out yielding the 10 year Treasury, a framing that tends to lift the whole group when rate expectations soften. The one hard corporate item was T-Mobile’s August 26 WARN filing in Washington state cutting 77 corporate, regional and retail jobs, part of an ongoing round of store closures that fits the broader carrier theme of margin defense through cost reduction. Verizon has publicly targeted roughly $5 billion in operating expense reduction for 2026. Separately, Bank of America argued this week that SpaceX’s push into wireless could end up benefiting T-Mobile rather than damaging it, a notable reframing after the early August selloff on that same worry. AT&T’s week was quiet on the corporate side, with a football season promotion and a note that third quarter results land October 21. Details on the T-Mobile job cuts are at GeekWire.
Router & Equipment Makers
Semtech was the story of the week and arguably of the month. Its fiscal second quarter results on August 25 beat on both lines, and the guidance was the real surprise: $405 million to $415 million in revenue against roughly $360 million expected, driven by data center connectivity and LoRa strength. Shares jumped more than 10 percent the following session and drew a wave of price target increases before giving back part of the move on Friday. Cisco expanded its Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA into rack scale deployments through a Supermicro partnership on August 25, reinforcing that the AI infrastructure buildout is where networking capital is flowing. Ericsson, Digi, Netgear and Inseego had no material company news, so their moves were sector drift.
Two structural pressures are worth watching for anyone buying routers this year. Memory costs continue to climb as AI data center demand absorbs DRAM supply, and router class memory has risen sharply, which several vendors have flagged as a gross margin headwind. And the FCC’s expanded Covered List restrictions on foreign made consumer routers continue to reshape US supply, with several vendors operating on conditional approvals. Both point in the same direction: hardware pricing on the consumer and small business end is likely to stay elevated. The Semtech release is on Business Wire.
Satellite & Emerging
This group is splitting in two. Half of it no longer trades on fundamentals at all. Rocket Lab’s $8 billion acquisition of Iridium at $54 per share cleared its Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period on August 17 and Iridium filed its merger proxy on August 26, with a target close in mid 2027. Amazon’s roughly $11.6 billion acquisition of Globalstar at $90 per share is expected to close in 2027. Globalstar’s sub 1 percent weekly range is the signature of a stock pinned by an arbitrage spread, not a business story.
The other half sold off. AST SpaceMobile fell 15.4 percent with no company announcement to explain it, extending a drawdown of roughly 37 percent since the end of June despite a raised revenue outlook earlier in August. Viasat dropped 9.0 percent, continuing a de rating that began with its August 4 fiscal first quarter revenue miss on fixed broadband subscriber declines. Meanwhile SpaceX rose 3.3 percent after Elon Musk said the company’s best guess for reaching roughly $3.5 trillion in revenue is around 2033, well ahead of Wall Street models. The read across is that capital is rotating toward the incumbent scale player and away from the challengers still deploying. EchoStar was quiet, with its Hughes unit bankruptcy and the $19 billion S band spectrum sale to SpaceX remaining the live storylines.
Starlink and Amazon Leo
Starlink’s biggest item this week was operational rather than commercial. SpaceX confirmed that the August 25 Starlink 10-49 mission was the final planned Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral until Starship begins flying from Florida, with Vandenberg absorbing the Starlink launch cadence for the rest of 2026 and possibly beyond. Vandenberg then launched 27 more satellites on August 26. Amazon Leo, the renamed Project Kuiper, had no hard dated announcement this week. Its standing position is that commercial service begins later this year after slipping from a mid 2026 target, with roughly 354 production satellites on orbit, three announced terminals, and enterprise agreements with JetBlue, Delta and AT&T. Launch coverage is at Spaceflight Now, and Leo’s status is covered at Light Reading.
5Gstore Take
The signal we care about most this week is the memory and tariff driven pressure on router pricing. When component costs rise and regulatory approvals narrow the supplier field, the practical answer for businesses is not to wait it out but to buy hardware with a long service life and a strong software roadmap, so the router you deploy this year is still doing useful work in 2029. That is where the enterprise grade names earn their premium over consumer gear.
On the satellite side, the divergence between SpaceX and the pure plays is a reminder that for most business deployments the question is not which constellation wins but whether your router can fail over to satellite at all. Multi WAN routers that treat Starlink as just another WAN source are the low risk way to get satellite resilience without betting on any single operator.
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FAQ
Why did AST SpaceMobile fall so much this week?
No company announcement explained the move. The stock declined in four of five sessions, and the decline fits a broader rotation out of pre revenue satellite names and toward operators with constellations already generating revenue.
Does the Iridium acquisition change anything for existing Iridium customers?
Not in the near term. The Rocket Lab deal is targeted to close in mid 2027 and remains subject to shareholder approval, so service and hardware continue unchanged for now.
Why are router prices still rising?
Two reasons stack on top of each other. AI data center demand has pushed DRAM and flash pricing up sharply, and FCC restrictions on foreign made consumer routers have narrowed the approved supplier pool for the US market.
Is Peplink publicly traded?
Not directly. Peplink’s listed parent is Plover Bay Technologies, which trades on the Hong Kong exchange under 1523. If Peplink lists separately on Nasdaq we will switch to that ticker in this report.
How often does this report run?
Every Friday afternoon, covering the trading week that just ended.
Disclaimer
This post is informational market commentary and general industry news, not investment advice. Prices reflect the latest available quotes at the time of writing and may not match your broker’s settled figures. Several rows are noted above as approximate where a settled Friday close was unavailable. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.
About the Author
Michael Ginsberg is the founder of 5Gstore.com, a trusted source for cellular routers and failover networking solutions since 2005. With a background in software and networking dating back to 1988, he writes about cellular connectivity, IoT infrastructure, network security, and fleet management. Connect with Michael on LinkedIn or reach the 5Gstore team through our contact page.
