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Two of Europe's Biggest Internet Satellite Companies Are Merging To Take On Starlink (engadget.com) 42

Posted by BeauHD from the combined-forces dept.
Internet satellite operators OneWeb and Eutelsat are planning to merge in the hopes of becoming a stronger rival to SpaceX's Starlink. Engadget reports: The merger, which is subject to approval from regulators and Eutelsat shareholders, is expected to close by mid-2023 and it values OneWeb at $3.4 billion. Shareholders of OneWeb and Eutelsat will each own half of the combined company. Eutelsat has a fleet of 36 geostationary orbit satellites. These will be combined with OneWeb's cluster of low-earth orbit satellites, which can provide internet access from the skies. OneWeb currently has 428 satellites in orbit of a planned 648 in its first-generation network.

OneWeb and Eutelsat expect to have combined revenues of $1.56 billion in the 2022-23 fiscal year. Eutelsat chair Dominique D'Hinnin and CEO Eva Berneke will remain in those positions in the merged entity. OneWeb investor Sunil Bharti Mittal will become co-chairman. [...] After the expected merger, the UK will retain a "special share" in OneWeb as well as exclusive rights over the company. These grant the government a significant say in national security controls over the network and veto rights over certain decisions, such as the location of OneWeb's headquarters.
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Two of Europe's Biggest Internet Satellite Companies Are Merging To Take On Starlink More

Two of Europe's Biggest Internet Satellite Companies Are Merging To Take On Starlink

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  • Don't they know Murrika owns space?

  • Compete with Starlink? (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @03:44AM (#62737546)

    Somebody email them to let them know Starlink *already* has over 2700 satellites in space.

    • What is your point? They should not enter a market because they are not already bigger than the biggest player?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by lxnt ( 98232 )

        It's just that geosynch sat datalinks have become obsolete.

        So Eutelsat woke up at last and decided to sell their junk while they can.

        • Re:Compete with Starlink? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @05:34AM (#62737662)

          Eutelsat sold nothing, Eutelsat stepped in with its billions earned while geosynch was the thing, and increased their share (purchased) OneWeb. Eutelsat gains a network of 400 low-orbit satellites launched in the past 2 years, and OneWeb gains enough money to fulfil their plans to launch 6000+ satellites. Looks like a win-win for them and also for the consumer market.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

            Looks like a win-win for them and also for the consumer market.

            ...and another loss for amateur astronomers.

            • Amateur astronomers just need to stop moaning and write better software to remove the close moving objects. That should be easy enough.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
                It's fun to come up with solutions that require other people to spend time and money, isn't it?

            • Amateur astronomers already deal with countless objects flying overhead. All things considered, starlink satellites are tiny and much further away compared to things like airplanes and jets. The only problem starlink satellites posed was how reflective they were, but that has already been addressed, and the offending ones won't be up there much longer.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
                Absolutely, starlink has taken measures to mitigate some of the issues. However, there is concern about OneWeb and their satellite reflectivity. I found some old articles that complained about their reflectivity. There were suggestions for ways they could mitigate the problem, but I can't find anything that clearly says they've taken action to do it. (Granted, I didn't spend too long looking)

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by lxnt ( 98232 )

            Be it as it may.

            Point is, GSO is dead and they had to do something, anything.

            I very much doubt OneWeb will get anywhere.

            • SpaceX has cost advantage since they are vertically integrated with launch services. OneWeb has to pay full freight for every sat they launch, and is at the mercy of launch providers available scheduling, which puts them at a big disadvantage in comparison.

              • Suppose SpaceX rockets weren't full of Starlink satellites.
                They could instead be full of Oneweb satellites. Or any other customer.

                Every time they send up a rocket without any Oneweb or $other-company sats, they are giving up the opportunity to get paid full cost. Of course you can replace Oneweb with any other customer. If Acme would have paid SpaceX $20 million, and Starlink only pays them $10 million, then SpaceX lost out on $10 million by choosing to carry Starlink payloads instead of Acme payloads.

                In th

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Puls4r ( 724907 )
                  That assumes that OneWeb would pay for all the launches that Starlink is currently using - which they wouldn't.

                  • Yes, it applies to those launches that SpaceX could have used to carry payloads for other customers, other than Starlink. That portion is not all, and is not none. Maybe half the launches could have instead carried other paying customers, so they are effectively paying full retail for half their launches, getting a discount on the other half.

                • I doubt SpaceX is bumping paying customers to put up starlink sats.

                  I understand they are using "spare capacity". So if ever OneWeb or some other organisation wants to pay for 10 or 20 straight launches, am sure SpaceX will do it, then carry on launching more starlink sats.

                  Anyway OneWeb already has a deal with SpaceX to launch it's sats (that happened after Russia basically took money from OneWeb and refused to launch or return the sats/money to OneWeb after the Ukraine "not a war" started).

                  It shows how much

                  • Anyway OneWeb already has a deal with SpaceX to launch it's sats (that happened after Russia basically took money from OneWeb and refused to launch or return the sats/money to OneWeb after the Ukraine "not a war" started).

                    I don't think refunds are reimbursements are happening in anything Russia related.
                    In any case, do you think OneWeb would want the publicity of Russia launching their sats?

                • Taking a modest financial loss early to capture monopolistic market pricing for the long term is a thing.

            • Dead is a strong word. GSO is a pain because of the long (>500 ms ping) latency, but the cost per bit can be lower than a LEO system. It has the advantage that you can put capacity down just where itâ(TM)s needed; LEO systems tend to spread capacity over the globe (although you can tune the density by latitude with the use of inclined orbits). The fact is, much of the internet traffic (streaming video) is not particularly latency sensitive. So a GEO plus LEO system could provide both low latenc

              • LEO spot beams can be and are more dense than GSO spot beams, so you'll get more aggregate bandwidth with the former. Not only that but LEO birds are much smaller and have a lower launch cost. I believe SpaceX puts 60 starlink birds in the air from a single launch.

                I'm not certain but I don't think it's currently possible to reuse the first stage with a GSO launch. Starship will likely change that though.

      • I don't know much about satellite companies, but TFA suggests that Eutelsat's geosynchronous satellites are not suitable for internet communication (I'm assuming they are in a too-high orbit to provide low-latency communication), and that OneWeb's ambitions are to provide only 648 satellites initially, which is less than one quarter of what Starlink already has in orbit. I know from elsewhere that SpaceX (the parent company of Starlink) has a reputation for being able to design, build and launch space equip

    • Re:Compete with Starlink? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @04:32AM (#62737594) Homepage Journal

      TFA seems to be confused, they are not taking on Starlink. Their satellites are very different and not designed to provide low speed broadband to consumers. They are targeting IoT devices.

      That means some key differences. Much smaller antennas, lower power and lower data rates.

      Amateurs are already doing this kind of thing with LoRa cube sats.

      • So malware distribution nodes in space... great. A Kessler Syndrome event can't happen soon enough.
        • Don't blame the network. Blame the people who make shitty devices, and the cheap dumbasses who buy them to save $6.
          • Still doesn't justify the actions of companies deploying a network of satellites to support such BS. If anything, it will encourage more people to buy into this crap and more manufacturers to implement IoT transceivers in their devices.
      • Would "much smaller antennas" extend as small as a normal-looking cellphone with satellite connectivity? Even if it were limited to sending 2-way text messages that would be great.

        • Would "much smaller antennas" extend as small as a normal-looking cellphone with satellite connectivity? Even if it were limited to sending 2-way text messages that would be great.

          If you have a need for such a thing the antennas should probably not be a major cause for vanity.

          https://www.mec.ca/en/product/... [www.mec.ca]

    • Musk said the current generation of Starlink isn't sustainable economically and that they need Starship to loft the next generation of satellites to make it sustainable.

      If Starship works, I think you're right, Starlink will own the market until competing launch providers master reusability.

      If Starship fails, it remains to be seen who is still around in a few years.

  • I was just thinking to myself today, "Hey, Myself, we really need more space junk." The only upshot is that, at this point, we may eventually have enough companies launching enough orbiting metal that all the reflected light could start to curb global warming. Hopefully it won't go horribly wrong. [youtube.com]

  • Hanging them is the hard part (Score:3)

    by kmahan ( 80459 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @09:25AM (#62738084)

    SpaceX/Starlink/Elon understood that just making the satellites wouldn't be enough. With SpaceX they have the launch capacity to hang those satellites -- not being reliant on other companies. And SpaceX has reduced the launch cost dramatically - benefiting from the constant need to launch more Starlink satellites.

  • This is an opportunity to study the pros and cons of two very different cultures. Can we reveal the best method of organizing a project for success? What is best for creativity? What is best for executing a defined outcome?

    Is it possible to do this kind of experiment without bias?

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