Airtel’s Satellite-Internet Starts Soon: 36 Satellites Launched, Rs 4000 Crore Funds Received

Latest reports reveal that the Bharti Group-backed OneWeb is raising $550 million (Rs 4,103 crore approx) by selling a 24% stake to French satellite operator, Eutelsat Communications.

A Part Of Bigger Picture

With the fresh move, OneWeb is bringing its total funding to $1.9 billion.

This will definitely help the satellite internet company to come closer to launching a first-generation satellite fleet, totaling 648 satellites next year.

In this deal, Eutelsat, a geostationary satellite operator, will become a significant equity partner and enjoy similar governance rights to the UK government and Bharti Global, who co-own OneWeb.

Backed by Bharti Group, OneWeb has confirmed that they are on schedule to cover 50 degrees latitude and above by June 2021.

Successful Launch Of 36 Satellites

Moving ahead, the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company,  has confirmed the successful launch of another batch of 36 satellites by Arianespace and Glavkosmos. 

On 26 April, the satellites were launched from Vostochny Cosmodrome. 

Now, OneWeb has successfully completed the sixth launch as its services will be ready to start by the end of the year.  

With this sixth batch, the company has taken its in-orbit constellation to 182 satellites.

OneWeb Future Plans

In the future, these satellites will be a part of its 648 LEO satellite fleet that will deliver low-latency global connectivity and high-speed according to OneWeb.

by June 2021, this will represent 60 percent of the constellation required to enable its connectivity solution to reach all regions north of 50 degrees latitude.

The CEO of OneWeb, Neil Masterson said, “With this successful launch, we are launching more satellites, demonstrating the network, and announcing more distribution signings around the globe, thereby building momentum, rapidly. We have a world-class team and product, and alongside our supportive shareholders, we’re getting ever closer to bringing our connectivity services to some of the world’s hardest to reach places. These are exciting times at OneWeb as it continues to work towards bringing connectivity to everyone, everywhere,”.

This said the launch was the third in a five-launch ‘Five to 50’ program.

 Basically, this will enable OneWeb to offer services across the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and the Arctic Seas.

OneWeb plans to switch this setup on before the end of 2022 a plan to further extend global service available in 2022.