Advanced TV is reporting that OneWeb, founded by Greg Wyler, is planning to circle the planet with a mega-constellation of hundreds of satellites in order to reach unserved, or underserved, broadband consumers. That company has just swapped out its CEO, which is something of a concern to the industry, but there are now extra questions over the firm's financing and business model.
OneWeb is, in theory, extremely well backed. The company has the might of Japanese media conglomerate SoftBank’s wealthy ‘Vision Fund’ as a major investor, but is also financially supported by the likes of Airbus, Intelsat, Virgin, Coca Cola and India’s Bharti.
Nevertheless, there are skeptics. First up are delays with the first batch of 10 satellites under construction by Airbus at their Toulouse facility. They are already late by many months and will not now launch much before February of next year, although OneWeb officials at this week’s World Satellite Business Week in Paris reportedly said they are now overly worried by the delay.
Artistic rendition of the
OneWeb constellation.
This test-batch of 10 were also hoped to prove the ‘production line’ capability of eventually building up to 900 satellites, and at a price of about $500,000 per craft. There is now reportedly considerable doubt as to whether that target price can be achieved, with industry insiders suggesting the price could be as high as $900,000 per unit. In the absence of hard news from OneWeb, the rumors will — no doubt — see the price per satellite rise.
However, there is also uncertainty over OneWeb’s initial funding, which specialist trade publication Space Intel Report states has been variously quoted at $1.2 billion, or $1.7 billion, or more than $2 billion. This round of cash is much less than that needed to build and launch the fleet of satellites, which the company has variously said would need a total of some $3.5-$6 billion, and no doubt not including the costs of getting the business established with consumers.
This has led to questions over how that funding — whatever the amount — is flowing into the business, and the importance of the banks and lending institutions. This has provoked other questions, not least over the role of the French export credit agency (Bpifrance) which is said to want to see more customer commitments before its coughs up its cash.
Much of the funding is earmarked for the construction of its j-v satellite facility (with Airbus) near Cape Canaveral in Florida where two side-by-side production lines are being built to start production of some 900 satellites needed for the constellation.
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