Starlink Rival OneWeb Poised for Global Coverage

As part of its global rollout plans, OneWeb, a rival to Elon Musk's Starlink internet satellite venture, launched over the weekend the final batch of satellites needed for its broadband service.

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The British start-up increased its constellation's current size to 618 satellites by launching 36 more satellites early on Sunday from the Satish Dhawan Space Station in Sriharikota, India. 9 a.m. saw the launch of the satellites. a state-owned company in India called NewSpace India Limited launched an LVM3 rocket at local time on Sunday.

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Despite the fact that OneWeb still has to launch a few more satellites in May and June, business leaders claim that the company now has enough satellites in orbit to provide internet service to any location on the planet. By year's end, the business wants to give its customers access to a global network.

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"This means that we will be able to provide what has been lacking for a long time: high-speed, low latency broadband connectivity onto every ocean-going vessel — yachts, maritime industry, offshore oil rigs — every aircraft will now be connected with a high-speed, low latency connectivity," OneWeb Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said on a call with reporters on Monday morning.

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“Hard-to-reach locations will begin to be covered, including desert, forest, mountains, and the Himalayas.”

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Mittal said that the majority of the "essential" Earth-based infrastructure for its network is now in place, with the exception of a few ground stations that have yet to be built.

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OneWeb, a company founded in 2012, aims to provide high-speed internet to the planet using a system of 750-mile-high low-Earth orbit satellites.

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OneWeb intends to launch a total of 648 satellites, of which 588 are necessary for global coverage. The remaining ones will act as backup satellites in case some of the network's other satellites go rogue.

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Most of the "essential" Earth-based infrastructure for its network is now in play, according to Mittal, with the exception of a few ground stations that have still to be built.

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OneWeb, a company founded in 2012, plans to use a network of 750-mile-high low-Earth orbit satellites to broadcast high-speed internet to the planet.

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588 satellites are needed for global coverage, hence OneWeb plans to launch a total of 648 spacecraft. The remaining satellites will act as backups in case any other satellites on the network go rogue.

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OneWeb faces off against a range of companies, such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, Amazon, and Inmarsat.

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It reached an agreement to merge with French satellite provider Eutelsat in July of last year. The merger should be completed by the summer, according to management.

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OneWeb intends to pursue a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange after the transaction is finished.

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The company faces a lot of tough competition. Thousands of satellites have been launched by Musk's SpaceX's Starlink division to provide a network connection to areas with spotty internet.

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OneWeb, which targets markets in North America, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, Latin America, and Africa, is seeing "strong" demand, according to Mittal, who acknowledged that the company still has "some catching up to do."

According to Mittal, the company, which is in the red, is currently bringing in millions of dollars each month. It anticipates bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue one day.

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OneWeb claims it is aiming at business clients, in contrast to Starlink, which offers broadband plans to consumers.

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Deals have been made with important telecom companies like France's Orange and Australia's Telstra. OneWeb has dozens of users in 15 countries by the end of February.

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With the help of a $1 billion funding deal supported by the UK, OneWeb was saved from bankruptcy. Bharti Global, an Indian telecommunications giant, and the government.

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OneWeb has persevered in securing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from former backers SoftBank despite multiple difficulties, such as the inability to launch satellites from Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, to support its expensive vision of delivering from space.

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Mittal declared on Monday that his pledge to the British government had been fulfilled.

OneWeb's second-largest shareholder is the government, with a 20% stake.

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The government will continue to have some influence over OneWeb after the deal with Eutelsat thanks to a "special stake" that allows it to decide where future launches will take place and what national security measures the company will put in place.