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<\/a><\/p>\nOwned by Musk\u2019s SpaceX, Starlink is indispensable for Ukrainian soldiers, who have relied on its terminals for communication, drone control and artillery coordination since Russia invaded in 2022.<\/p>\n
But Starlink\u2019s dominance has highlighted the risk of relying on a single U.S. company and its unpredictable owner.<\/p>\n
European authorities now want Eutelsat, based in a nondescript office district outside Paris, to provide a backup to Starlink in Ukraine as quickly as possible, via its satellite-internet service OneWeb.<\/p>\n
In the longer term, they are counting on Eutelsat to help build a space communication network that would make the continent more autonomous.<\/p>\n
Doubts abound that Eutelsat can compete with Starlink anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cOneWeb is not a suitable alternative to Starlink in any way, shape or form,\u201d said Christopher Baugh, a satellite-industry expert at consulting firm Analysys Mason . \u201cLaunching many satellites doesn\u2019t happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eutelsat wants to increase capacity. The question is how fast\u2014and who will foot the bill. Working in the company\u2019s favor is the momentous geopolitical shift since President Trump returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
Berneke, a 56-year-old who professes little taste for politics, said she first noticed the change in mid-February after Vice President JD Vance lambasted Europe\u2019s democracies at a security conference in Munich, alleging that European suppression of free speech and isolation of far-right parties posed a greater threat than Russia.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Trump and Vance gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dressing-down in the Oval Office , and Washington temporarily cut off Ukraine\u2019s military aid and intelligence-sharing\u2014including access to high-resolution satellite images from Maxar Technologies, a vital battlefield resource for Ukraine\u2019s defenders.<\/p>\n
Starlink didn\u2019t freeze its services in Ukraine\u2014but Europeans were anxious about the potential vulnerability.<\/p>\n \u201cIf SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers,\u201d Poland\u2019s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, wrote on X in early March, responding to Musk\u2019s assertion that Ukraine would collapse without him. Poland pays for around half of the cost of the roughly 50,000 Starlink terminals used by Ukraine\u2019s military and civilian authorities, according to Kyiv.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s response shocked Europeans: \u201cBe quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.\u201d<\/p>\n Berneke said her phone blew up after that. Panicked European officials wanted to know what Eutelsat could deliver in Ukraine, and how fast. \u201cCan you launch more capacity right now?\u201d she said they asked. undefined undefined Berneke pored over her company\u2019s inventory and found 5,000 OneWeb terminals that could go to Ukraine within weeks. Another 5,000 could be sent within a year. Eutelsat is now waiting for a green light from the European Union to deploy the terminals.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can get 5,000 to 10,000 terminals there, it is a real backup option,\u201d said Berneke.<\/p>\n There are currently around 1,000 OneWeb terminals in Ukraine. They are bulkier than Starlink\u2019s slim dishes, and costlier. The starting price of Starlink\u2019s user terminals is less than $400; OneWeb\u2019s start at $3,200.<\/p>\n To truly compete with Starlink, Eutelsat is likely to need billions of dollars in funding from its three biggest shareholders: the French and British governments and a conglomerate controlled by Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal .<\/p>\n Competition in the satellite-internet sector is heating up. Amazon is preparing a satellite network called Project Kuiper, and China is launching its own.<\/p>\n Eutelsat is \u201cthe only non-U.S., non-Chinese constellation that\u2019s going to be out there,\u201d said Berneke. In the new geopolitical context, \u201cthat\u2019s become a stronger selling point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Worries about Musk\u2019s reliability have even jeopardized Starlink\u2019s bid to win an Italian government contract to provide secure communications. Italy\u2019s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni , a friend of Musk\u2019s who has warm relations with the Trump administration, was leaning toward Starlink. But the European backlash against Musk has delayed a decision. Rome says it is examining Starlink alongside alternatives including Eutelsat.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you put all your eggs in an American basket, it will not be good for Italy,\u201d said Christophe Grudler, a French member of the European Parliament. \u201cImagine if tomorrow Musk says: I want to cut the signal to Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n European governments founded Eutelsat in 1977 with the goal of developing and launching satellites independently from the U.S. For decades, the company\u2019s main business was operating satellites 22,000 miles above the Earth\u2019s surface that move in sync with its rotation, with each satellite beaming continuously to a fixed territory. The main customers were television stations around the world.<\/p>\n In 2021, Eutelsat bought a 24% stake in OneWeb, a British company with a network of satellites that traveled much closer to Earth, like Starlink\u2019s.<\/p>\n Low-orbit networks cost more to build because far more satellites are needed for worldwide coverage. Their advantage is that signals need much less time to travel to and from the Earth\u2019s surface, allowing for near real-time communication.<\/p>\n Berneke became CEO in early 2022 after running a Danish IT company. She had no experience in the space industry or of navigating geopolitics. Her crash course began within weeks when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n As Russian tanks rolled toward Kyiv, her team learned that tens of thousands of Eutelsat terminals connected to a geostationary satellite serving Europe had shut down. Russian hackers, aiming to disrupt Ukrainian military communications, had exploited a software weakness to upload malware onto the terminals.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n