OneWeb to make Rs 250-300 crore investment to set up ground stations in India

The global LEO (low earth orbit) satellite communications company - OneWeb, backed by Bharti Enterprise, is planning to invest Rs 250-300 crore ($30-40 million) in setting up new ground stations in India. This is because the company gears up to launch high-speed satellite broadband services in India next year.

Bharti Enterprise Chairman, Sunil Mittal said that Bharti Airtel’s equity participation in OneWeb’s India JV would be a tiny sum in its role as custodian of the UK-based LEO satellite operator in India and South Asian markets.

"Airtel will be a partner of choice for OneWeb in India and its equity participation into the OneWeb India JV will be of the order of magnitude of $5-7 million only," Mittal said.

He also cleared that Airtel neither has any plans to buy Bharti Enterprises’ stake in OneWeb UK or invest into the global satellite communications company.

Last month, Mittal had said OneWeb is in talks with Sasken Technologies, ISRO’s commercial arm, NewSpace India (NSIL) and a clutch of global tech companies to sharply reduce user access terminal costs before launching fast satellite broadband services in India by May 2022.

In India, OneWeb had applied to the telecom department for two permits – a national long distance (NLD) and a GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) licence for delivering satellite broadband services using its global LEO constellation. DoT has issued a letter of Intent (LoI) to OneWeb for NLD services via satellite, while the one for GMPCS is awaited.