Bharti-led OneWeb launches 36 satellites By CIOReviewIndia Team

Bharti-led OneWeb launches 36 satellites

CIOReviewIndia Team | Friday, 18 December 2020, 14:11 IST

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A Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications operator, OneWeb, which is co-owned by Bharti Global and the United Kingdom government, launched 36 satellites on Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia. It paved the path for launch of high-speed internet services in key global markets from late late 2021, and in India by mid-2022.

Sunil Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Enterprises chairman, stated, “Today’s launch is one of many steps we have taken to operationalise one of the world’s first LEO constellations.” 

Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal was recently named OneWeb’s executive chairman.

Sunit Mittal also added that OneWeb’s satellites system would meet existing and future demand by delivering – Broadband connectivity to communities, towns and regions which are left non-connected, amid huge demand, as the pandemic had taxed infrastructure everywhere, and left many people worldwide with little or no options but to access internet.

OneWeb’s latest satellite launch from Soyuz vehicle takes the inner orbit constellation to 110 satellites, which is part of the 648-strong LEO satellite fleet for delivering high-speed, low-latency global connectivity.

This has secured global priority spectrum rights and completed four launches.

In the previous month, Bharti Global MD Shravin Mittal, who is the son of Sunil Mittal, based on United Kingdowm,

A consortium of the United Kingdom government and Bharti Global has invested $1 billion in new equity into OneWeb. It helped the satellite company in recent times to emerge from United States’ chapter 11 bankruptcies. Bharti Global is the overseas arm of Bharti Enterprises, the holding company of Airtel – India’s second largest telco.

OneWeb will be starting commercial connectivity services from late 2021 with initial connection services in UK, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada.

The OneWeb constellation will enable user terminals in capability of offering 3G, 4G-LTE, 5G and Wi-Fi coverage, providing high-speed access globally − by air, sea and land.

The company officials said that OneWeb is quickly returning to full operations, by fast pace hiring, restarting launches, and continuing to build the ground station network and push for user terminal development.

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