AIRTEL ONEWEB DEAL.
                     AIRTEL 
ONEWEB 
DEAL
INTRODUCTION
– Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises, in a consortium 
involving the UK government won the bid for satellite 
firm OneWeb. 
– The UK government and Bharti Enterprises will invest $1 
billion (Rs 7,465 crore) in the British firm that went 
bankrupt 
Source: financialexpress.com
BROADBAND SERVICES
– The two partners will invest $500 million each in 
OneWeb, which aims to provide high-speed, low-latency 
broadband services, especially in rural areas, and take 
on the likes of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink and Jeff 
Bezos’s Amazon-linked Project Kuiper.
Source: financialexpress.com
CONTRIBUTION
– The British government will take a significant equity 
share in OneWeb. 
– Bharti would provide commercial and operational 
leadership, and bring OneWeb a revenue base to 
contribute towards its future success.
Source: economictimes.com
INVESTMENT
– The UK and Bharti, which is making the investment 
through overseas arm Bharti Global, didn’t announce 
how much stake they would own. 
– People in the know said each would get a 45% stake, 
with existing investors retaining the remaining 10%.
Source: economictimes.com
UNIVERSAL BROADBAND CONNECTIVITY 
– Bharti will be leading the effort to deliver the promise 
of universal broadband connectivity through OneWeb, 
with active support and participation of the British 
government
Source: projectsmonitor.com
Bharti Enterprises-Founding member of 
OneWeb 
– Bharti Enterprises, the holding company of Bharti Airtel, 
India’s second largest telecom operator, was one of the 
founding members of OneWeb and had a strategic stake 
in the company prior to the latest developments.
Source: mobileworldlive.com
Journey of OneWeb
– OneWeb was founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Greg 
Wyler. It had raised about $3.3 billion in debt and equity 
from a clutch of investors such as SoftBank, Airbus, 
Qualcomm, Coca Cola, Intelsat and Grupo Salinas. 
– It collapsed into bankruptcy in March after its biggest 
investor, SoftBank, pulled back its funding. 
Source: prnewswire.com
NEW PROPOSED INVESTMENT
– The new proposed investment, which is expected to 
help the company complete construction of the 
constellation, is subject to a clearance from a US court 
and other regulatory approvals, and is expected to close 
before the end of the year.
Source: bloombergquint.com
SPACE PROGRAMME
– India’s leading-edge capabilities in the space 
programme through the Indian Space Research 
Organisation can be leveraged to accelerate OneWeb’s 
ambitions.
Source: economictimes.com
GLOBAL SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
– The deal could potentially catapult the Bharti Group to 
the big league in the global satellite communications 
space with the likes of Elon Musk's SpaceX Starlink and 
Amazon's Project Kuiper.
– The challenges remain in delivering affordable satellite 
broadband services in the absence of low-cost 
terminals.
Source: economictimes.com