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OneWeb has often spoken of providing broadband to all humanity. More recently it has
revised that audience and targeting rural communities who would use a village or
community centre as the main hub with re-transmission around the neighbourhood on
WiFi. OneWeb has also targeted the In-Flight consumer as well as ships, governments
and local authorities.
These LEO technologies are extremely sophisticated. They circle the Earth in 90-108
minutes (depending on orbital height). This fast transit over the sky needs a ground
terminal to be able to track the satellite but instantly electronically adjusts to track the
following space-craft in order to achieve constant connectivity. SpaceX, for example, was
at one stage talking about a base station costing $1000 each, and they were hoping that
mass-production would bring this down to nearer $300 each.
Some people argue that the LEO operators were looking to the cellular phone model,
where a phone costs $600-$1000 but this is amortised over a 2 or 3-year contract and
the client pays a simple monthly cost. But few isolated African or Asian individual
potential users could afford the resulting $60-$70-$80 a month cost for a LEO
subscription.
With OneWeb now navigating its bankruptcy ‘debtor in possession’ legal predicament, no
doubt further information will emerge as to its own thoughts on how it planned to square
this expensive circle.