Eutelsat quits residential broadband
June 16, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Eutelsat is selling its European retail broadband services. The sell-off includes its holdings in Bigblu Broadband and similar retail operations in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and Greece.
Eutelsat has struggled to win significant customer acceptance for its retail operations. It has already exited KaSat (EuroBroadband, which it sold 100 per cent to Viasat in April 2021 after being in a partnership with Viasat since November 2020).
Eutelsat says it will be selling its retail activities to “an experienced private operator”.
When Eutelsat bought Bigblu in 2020 it had some 50,000 (retail and business) subscribers. That has barely grown since.
Eutelsat is in the final stages of merging with OneWeb. The sell-off does not include Eutelsat retail activities in Africa.
“The disposal comes in the wake of the considerable success of Eutelsat’s wholesale go-to-market model to distribute its satellite broadband capacity over Europe, underpinned by major wholesale deals signed with Orange (France), TIM (Italy), Hispasat (Spain) and Swisscom (Switzerland) for the capacity in their respective markets on the Eutelsat Konnect satellite. The private operator will also become a wholesale distributor in existing markets,” said a Eutelsat statement.
“This strategy will be further bolstered by the entry into service of Konnect VHTS expected in the second half of 2023, with 230 beams over Europe and MENA, representing a Ka-band capacity of 500 Gbps, adaptable according to demand and specific needs in each country. Firm commitments have already been secured for part of this incremental capacity by important European telecom operators, (e.g., Orange, TIM or Swisscom), confirming the ability of Konnect VHTS to provide a compelling and competitive solution for broadband to under-served regions of Europe,” the Eutelsat statement added.
Bigblu Broadband handles sales for Eutelsat’s Tooway and SkyLogic systems. Bigblu is publicly quoted and in its latest results (for the year ending November 30th, 2022) it reported total revenues (up 15.1 per cent) to £31.2 million. Total customers at the period end were 59,300 (FY21: 58,800) of which Australasia represents 51,500 customers (87 per cent). In other words, the non-Australian customer base (consumer and business) totalled some 8,000.
Other markets that Bigblu is active in include relationships with Telenor in Norway and Kacific Satellite in New Zealand.