The French satellite operator Eutelsat confirmed on Monday that it had started talks with the British OneWeb for a merger to be able to offer high-speed internet and thus compete with Starlink of the American SpaceX.
Eutelsat already operates 35 geostationary telecom satellites and already owns almost 23 percent of the capital of OneWeb. The latter has already placed 428 satellites of its 648-count constellation into low orbit for high-speed internet, with little data lag, which is essential to meet soaring needs.
The merger aims to position the whole in the high-speed Internet sector, in particular for regions without fiber optic cable or to meet future needs such as in-car Internet.
Competitor Starlink
A giant then emerges to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has already launched 4,408 satellites, and Jeff Bezos’ future Kuiper constellation.
The new entity would be the first to offer both geostationary and low-orbit services and would be uniquely positioned to address the booming connectivity market, estimated to be worth $16 billion by 2030,” Eutelsat said in a press release about the merger project, which was released on Saturday. Bloomberg news agency was released.
Share exchange
The intention is that the shareholders of Eutelsat and OneWeb each own fifty percent of the capital of the combined group, through a share exchange. Shareholders in OneWeb are the Indian conglomerate Bharti (30 per cent) and Eutelsat (22.9), the British government (17.6), the Japanese Softbank (17.6) and the Korean conglomerate Hanwa (8.8 per cent). Eutelsat is 20 percent owned by Bpifrance, an investment bank of the French state.
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