“Today’s launch is one of many steps we have taken to bring one of the world’s first LEO constellations to life,” said Bharti Enterprises President Sunil Mittal, who was recently named OneWeb CEO, in a statement. official.
He added that OneWeb’s satellite system would meet current and future demand by offering “broadband connectivity to communities, towns, regions that are not connected or not connected,” amid high demand, as the pandemic has imposed infrastructure everywhere and has left many people around the world with little or nothing. options to access the Internet.
OneWeb’s latest satellite launch from a Soyuz vehicle brings the constellation in orbit to 110 satellites, which is part of its fleet of 648-unit LEO satellites that will offer high-speed, low-latency global connectivity. It has obtained global priority spectrum rights and has completed four launches.
Last month, Bharti Global CEO Shravin Mittal, the son of UK-based Sunil Mittal, told ET that OneWeb is open to entering India, either directly or through a trade association, that involves the JV route or a bandwidth capacity lease agreement, even as it prepares to launch fast broadband services in the country by June 2022.
Currently, a foreign satellite operator cannot directly sell bandwidth capacity to users in India, without going through Antrix Corp, the commercial and marketing arm of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
A consortium of the UK government and Bharti Global has invested $ 1 billion in new shares in OneWeb, helping the satellite company recently emerge from US Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Bharti Global is the branch in the overseas from Bharti Enterprises, the holding company of Airtel, India’s second largest telecommunications company.
OneWeb will start commercial connectivity services in late 2021 initially in the UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada. The OneWeb constellation will enable user terminals capable of offering 3G, 4G-LTE, 5G and Wi-Fi coverage, providing high-speed access worldwide, by air, sea and land.
Company officials said OneWeb is rapidly returning to full operations, hiring at a rapid pace, restarting launches, and continuing to build its ground station network and advance user terminal development.
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