Journalist
Chris Forrester.
According to journalist Chris Forrester, filing at the Advanced Television infosite, satellite mega-constellation OneWeb is seeking to raise another $1 billion (€0.9bn) as it starts work on orbiting 30 satellites per month in a few weeks. OneWeb wants to circle the planet with an initial batch of 650 satellites for broadband services.
OneWeb is backed, in part, by Japanese media conglomerate SoftBank, although there are also reports that SoftBank is looking to exit the business.
The report, from the UK’s Sunday Telegraph, stated that OneWeb’s ‘cash call’ will come ahead of SoftBank’s results statement due on November 6th. However, SoftBank has already written down about £380 million of their OneWeb investment. However, the newspaper reports that SoftBank remains committed to OneWeb.