But can it replace the functionality of Starlink, which is easy to use and has sufficient capacity?
Enter eutelsat
Oneweb has had a long and tortured history, with bankruptcy, several changes owned, the survival of the seizure of some satellites by Russia, and much more. The company received stability of stability in 2023 when the French satellite operator Eutelsat ONEB took over with a rating of $ 3.4 billion. The British and French governments each have slightly more than 10 percent of the company.
For the first two months of this year, the shares of the listed traded Eutelsat acted at historical lows, sometimes as low as 1.15 euros per share ($ 1.25). However, because the threats about Starlink Service in Ukraine emerged, the share has risen, which increases the value four times.
To understand whether the smaller OneWeb constellation could replicate the Starlink service offered in Ukraine, Ars spoke with Caleb Henry, the director of research at Quilty Analytics, who also writes a deeply investigated book about the history of Oneweb. The constellation is functional but not optimal, he said.
“Every sacrifice that was made over the years because of the survival of the company in the present hurt them in the future,” Henry said about Oneweb.
The constellation was originally intended as 900 satellites and includes many more gateways on the floor, both of which would offer more capacity. Oneweb has also not been able to reach a high production scale for its user terminals, which in some cases cost thousands of dollars in addition to a monthly subscription costs.
These terminals are also more awkward and less easy to use. For example, Henry said, Ukrainian soldiers have been able to assemble Starlink -Terminals on drones, but the OneB terminals are too big for that.
