OneWeb denies Russian investment

OneWeb, which wants to place at least 600 satellites into orbit and supply the planet with broadband service, has denied it wants Russia to take a stake in the business.

Reuters reported the original story that the would-be satellite operator wanted to bring Russia into its scheme. Reuters said that that discussions with Russian prime minister Dmitriy Medvedev took place last year.

The potential reasons behind such a move are twofold. Founder Greg Wyler thinks that be selling a modest stake to Russia (and 12.5 per cent has been mentioned) he will secure co-operation from Russia’s licensing authorities to license frequencies in order to beam services to and from the vast Russia territory.

His second reason is to ease the way forward for Russia’s space agency Roscosmos to permit usage of its giant rockets to help launch batches of its satellites.

Currently, OneWeb has been unable to obtain the necessary transmission licences.  Reuters, in its report, says that a Russian subsidiary of OneWeb made a submission to Russia’s frequency regulator, but it was rejected.