image credit: ReutersA space start-up established in the United Kingdom Bharti Global, an Indian corporation, has invested $500 million (£361 million) in OneWeb. Bharti will purchase a 39 percent stake in the satellite service, making it the company’s largest stakeholder. After it, the UK government is the second largest shareholder, and Bharti invested $1 billion to save OneWeb from bankruptcy last year. OneWeb will use the extra funding to put commercial satellites into space later this year. OneWeb is constructing a network of low-earth-orbit satellites to provide global broadband connectivity. The transaction is set to close in the second part of this year. “We overhauled OneWeb in just a year, during a global epidemic, and brought the operation back to full-scale. We have met all of the funding requirements with this round of funding “Shravin Mittal, Managing Director of Bharti Global, stated in a statement. BT and OneWeb have agreed to collaborate on rural broadband. Eutelsat makes a significant investment in OneWeb. The satellite firm OneWeb has been revived. The company has raised a total of $2.4 billion in finance to realize its goals. Eutelsat, based in Paris, invested $550 million in OneWeb in April. SoftBank, a Japanese technology conglomerate, is also a significant investor. The UK government, Eutelsat, and SoftBank will each hold 19.3 percent of the company under the terms of the agreement. The purchase represents a vote of confidence in the company, according to UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng: “It’s evident that investors see a solid future for this extraordinary, cutting-edge company and a robust commercial case for investment.” At the time of the bailout, the British government was chastised for using UK taxpayer funds to save a failing corporation. OneWeb and BT announced a pact earlier this week to look into ways to bring broadband internet to distant parts of the UK and people at sea. The two businesses said they’ll look into how to increase people’s ability to access data in remote areas, as well as how to improve the signal they get on their phones, such as how to prevent it from cutting out so frequently. ‘Project Gigabit,’ sponsored by the UK government, aims to improve rural broadband access across the country. OneWeb competes against companies like Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper and Elon Musk’s Starlink, which was just awarded a license to operate by the UK regulator. After receiving a license from Ofcom in November, Starlink commenced a UK trial of its services in January. OneWeb claims to have 218 satellites in orbit and plans to launch 36 more on Thursday. Satellites of OneWebIndiaCommunications
Continue reading
