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Photo: oneweb.net
On March 7, the Financial Times reported that four satellite operators from different European countries are in talks with governments and EU authorities to provide Ukraine with an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband satellite network. The news comes after the United States announced a suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv last week.
Reuters reported on Feb. 23 that Washington may be threatening to cut off Starlink access in Ukraine — where the system is heavily used by the military — unless Kyiv signs an agreement with the White House to grant the U.S. access to the country’s rare earth minerals.
The head of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has made contradictory statements regarding Starlink’s future. “I literally challenged Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off. What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose,” Musk posted to X on March 9. However, he later added that he would “never turn off [Starlink’s] terminals” regardless of how much he “disagreed with the Ukraine policy.”
Could Eutelsat’s OneWeb replace Starlink for the Ukrainian military?
One of the companies confirmed by the Financial Times to be involved in negotiations is Eutelsat OneWeb, a French satellite operator. Speaking to The Insider, space and rocket launch analyst Georgy Trishkin, who runs the Russian-language Telegram channel Tekhasskiy Vestnik (lit. “Texas Bulletin”), said that while OneWeb could theoretically serve as a replacement for Starlink, it falls significantly short in terms of speed and satellite coverage.
“From a purely technical standpoint, the option exists — satellite internet providers existed before Starlink. But a full replacement with the same quality of service is out of the question. The real issue is how much longer and more expensive it would be just to achieve a fraction of the capabilities and terminals Starlink currently provides.
OneWeb (which later merged with Eutelsat) and SpaceX's Starlink both launched around 2015 with a similar concept: low Earth orbit satellite internet with large constellations of hundreds or thousands of satellites. This marked a fundamental shift from older systems like Iridium, which relied on geostationary satellites, causing signal delays of up to 700 milliseconds compared to Starlink’s 20ms. The previous systems’ download speeds rarely exceeded 1 Mbps.
Among the current options, Starlink maintains a significant advantage over OneWeb. OneWeb’s satellites orbit at 1,200 km, whereas Starlink operates at 500–600 km, allowing for significantly faster speeds — up to 200 Mbps for Starlink, while OneWeb's claimed 150 Mbps is, in reality, closer to 60 Mbps. Moreover, Starlink has a much larger satellite fleet — over 6,000 in operation, with the total number continuing to grow despite 914 satellites having been decommissioned. OneWeb, by contrast, has only 648 satellites. While both companies deploy satellites of similar mass (between 500 and 750 kg), SpaceX has introduced multiple generations over the years and continues expanding the network’s capacity. OneWeb’s existing satellite constellation is already fully deployed, and it is unclear how many are still operational. The company continues to delay the launch of a new generation.
The biggest difference between these two solutions is the business structure of the companies. SpaceX is a fully integrated operator. They design, manufacture, launch, and manage their satellites in-house. They also produce the terminals using their own components and sell them through direct distribution channels. This level of vertical integration provides a massive advantage, allowing them to reduce costs for both satellites and communication terminals. OneWeb, on the other hand, only controls parts of the process — they manage operations and some aspects of development, but manufacturing, satellite deployment, and terminal supply are handled by third-party contractors. This slows down the company and drives up costs.
SpaceX’s primary weakness in this comparison is its ground-based satellite communication infrastructure, which it previously rented but is now expanding independently. OneWeb, on the other hand, relies on Eutelsat for this, as satellite traffic sales are one of Eutelsat’s core business models.”
Terminal production and cost
According to Trishkin, OneWeb also lags behind Starlink in affordability, and a full transition for Ukraine could take years.
“Since signing a contract with Hughes Network Systems in 2022 for the production of OneWeb communication terminals, only 5,000 terminals have been produced as of August 2024. Each unit costs around $10,000, excluding subscription fees of several hundred dollars. Additional suppliers, such as Kymeta and Intellian, offer niche models priced between $5,000 and $20,000.
For comparison, SpaceX manufactures 15,000 Starlink terminals per day at its factory in Bastrop, Texas, with prices ranging from $300 to $500, depending on the version. More powerful and expensive models also exist. Starlink terminals are standardized, whereas OneWeb's terminals vary greatly in quality and capabilities. Another crucial factor is cybersecurity — SpaceX actively defends against cyberattacks and updates its infrastructure, including satellite software, for security purposes.
Whether OneWeb can ensure secure access to its network under such conditions remains an open question. Currently, neither OneWeb nor its partners have the production capacity to rapidly scale up terminal manufacturing. These are complex devices with phased array antennas that actively transmit signals in both directions. That’s why the idea of a full and immediate replacement for Starlink seems unrealistic. And that doesn’t even account for contractual negotiations, logistics, and other factors that could cause further delays. At the moment, aside from certain suppliers in China, no company can match SpaceX's production scale for Starlink terminals.”
According to Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke, thousands of OneWeb terminals are currently in Ukraine, and their number could increase tenfold if Starlink were to be replaced. She told Bloomberg that deploying 40,000 terminals would take “a couple of months.”
However, Trishkin remains skeptical:
“In my view, fully replacing Starlink could take years, and the cost would be exponentially higher, considering Eutelsat's terminals are nearly 20 times more expensive. That means Ukraine would either have to sacrifice the number of terminals or spend significantly more money. And even then, the quality of service is uncertain.
SpaceX recently announced it has 5 million active users, meaning adding hundreds of thousands more poses no issue. But can OneWeb handle such a large-scale expansion? That remains uncertain, especially given that its real-world network speed is already 3-4 times lower, with latency reaching 70ms.
Communications via geostationary satellites, another option, are also poor for real-time operations or high-volume data transfer, making them a weak alternative. That technology belongs to the past century.
OneWeb also faces delays in deploying its next-generation satellites, with no clear timeline for their rollout. Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to begin deploying its third-generation Starlink satellites on the Starship Super Heavy rocket by the end of this year. Each Starship launch carrying 54 satellites will add up to 60 Tbps of network capacity, equivalent to 20 launches of the smaller Starlink V2 Mini satellites on Falcon 9. These new satellites will also enable direct-to-cell phone communication, which could prove even more valuable in combat conditions.
The EU plans to launch its own satellite network, IRIS², with 290 satellites scheduled to enter service by 2031, at an estimated cost of $11.1 billion.
Even the military-grade secure communications capability doesn't justify that price. That option is already available in other systems. The budget is several times higher than similar projects in Canada and Russia, and for Eutelsat, IRIS² has become a lifeline as it struggles to maintain relevance in the market.”