‘OneWeb launch brings 254 satellites in orbit’
BHARTI GLOBAL INVESTMENT MAKES IT LARGEST STAKEHOLDER IN COMPANY
A RUSSIAN Soyuz rocket carrying 36 UK telecommunication and internet satellites blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east last Thursday (1), the Roscosmos space agency said.
Images released by Roscosmos showed the Soyuz rocket, launched by Europe’s Arianespace, taking off against dark skies at 1248 GMT. “We have lift-off,” OneWeb, the London-headquartered company which has Indian multinational Bharti Global as a key shareholder, said on Twitter.
Bharti Global is active in telecoms, agribusiness and financial services and OneWeb’s executive chairman is Indian businessman Sunil Bharti Mittal.
OneWeb is working to complete the construction of a constellation of low earth orbit satellites providing enhanced broadband and other services to countries around the world.
The company is competing against billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in the race to provide fast internet for the world’s remote areas via satellites. The UK company plans for its global commercial internet service to be operational by next year, supported by some 650 satellites.
The British government and
Bharti Global came aboard after One Web collapsed into chapter 11 bankruptcy when former backer Softbank of Japan withdrew its support.
The new stakeholders each invested half a billion dollars when they took over the reconstituted company. OneWeb plans to deploy 648 low-orbit satellites to offer broadband internet to around 90 per cent of the planet.
OneWeb’s service is to begin in some regions by year’s end, with global rollout expected by the end of 2022.
Arianespace, which has worked with Russia for close to two decades, is under contract to make 16 Soyuz launches between December 2020 and the end of 2022. This year launches of 36 satellites took place in March, April and May.
“Taking our constellation to a total of 254 satellites, this launch will allow us to provide complete coverage north of 50 degrees latitude by the end of the 2021,” OneWeb said.
Last month the company signed a deal with the telecoms provider, BT. BT could take a large share of the connectivity capacity over Britain, but it would deploy OneWeb as part of its broadband solutions. More recently, Bharti Global said last week it will invest $500 million (£362m) in OneWeb, becoming the biggest shareholder in the satellite provider. With the deal, Bharti Group will now own a 39 per cent stake in OneWeb. The
deal is expected to complete in the second half of this year.
“In just a year and during a global pandemic, together we have transformed OneWeb, bringing the operation back to fullscale. With this round of financing, we complete the funding requirements,” Bharti Global’s managing director Shravin Mittal said in a statement.
In total, the company has secured $2.4 billion (£1.7bn) of funding to deliver on its ambitions. Paris-based Eutelsat took a stake in OneWeb with a $550m (£398m) investment in April. UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the deal indicates confidence in the company.
“It’s clear that investors see a strong future for this incredible, cutting-edge company and a robust commercial case for investment,” Kwarteng said.
Meanwhile, UK ministers are pushing a policy called Project Gigabit, which aims to improve rural broadband coverage. OneWeb is expected to play an important role in this initiative. Prime minister Boris Johnson said, “OneWeb proves what is possible when public and private investment come together, putting the UK at the forefront of the latest technologies, opening up new markets, and ultimately transforming the lives of people around the world.”