For years, Ukrainian officials have hinted that they are working on Starlink alternatives. But the truth is, there aren’t many options on the table.
The one most discussed is OneWeb, a satellite communications network owned by Eutelsat, a satellite operator in France. Like Starlink, this network relies on small, ground-based terminals, and its total constellation includes around 630 low-Earth-orbit satellites, which offer very high-speed connectivity and lower latency than satellites that orbit at higher altitudes.
Joanna Darlington, a spokeswoman for Eutelsat, says that OneWeb offers Europe-wide coverage and that the technology is already deployed in Ukraine to some extent, though she declined to share details. Still, there are more than 40,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine, according to reports, so replacing that network with OneWeb alternatives cannot be done overnight. “It’s possible but it’s not instant coffee,” says Darlington. (The firm claims Eutelsat’s OneWeb coverage in Europe rivals Starlink already.)
While Starlink terminals are made by SpaceX, OneWeb terminals are supplied by third-party companies. “We have stocks of terminals that we could deploy,” stresses Darlington, though she adds, “somebody has to pay for it.”
Poland and USAID, among others, have helped to fund Ukraine’s use of the Starlink network to date. Eutelsat is currently in talks with the European Union over a possible scaling up of OneWeb in Ukraine.
While OneWeb has promise, it’s difficult to see how Ukrainians, especially in battlefield conditions, might rely on it in the same way as Starlink, says Barry Evans, professor of information systems engineering at the University of Surrey.
“We’ve got one [OneWeb terminal] at the university, and it’s quite a complicated process in terms of actually getting connected and on-boarded,” he says. The terminals tend to be bulkier than Starlink’s and potentially harder to move quickly in a conflict zone, he adds, suggesting that OneWeb terminals might be better deployed at fixed locations on buildings, for example.
“The other challenge is the terminals for OneWeb cost thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars [for Starlink],” says Quilty. And yet, OneWeb is currently the “only option” readily available to Ukraine as an alternative, he adds.
That might change eventually. Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a rival to Starlink, could launch its first satellites later this year. Eventually, Project Kuiper will have more than 3,000 satellites. But, Evans notes, Amazon is also a US company. If the US government puts pressure on domestic firms to walk away from Ukraine, then Project Kuiper might not be of much use in the near term.
The European Union is working on its own constellation of communications satellites, called IRIS2. But they might not become operational until 2030 and will only feature around 300 medium- and low-Earth-orbit satellites. The size of a satellite constellation affects the connection speeds and coverage that it offers. Starlink, for example, already has more than 7,000 satellites in orbit, though the network might need around 10,000 in total before its coverage becomes truly global. SpaceX has suggested it might launch more than 40,000 satellites, if granted authorization to do so by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union.
Andrew Cavalier, space tech analyst at ABI Research, a tech intelligence firm, says he is skeptical that SpaceX would block Ukrainians from accessing Starlink, but current doubts over SpaceX’s reliability are a “wake-up call” for countries using the service, who may now increasingly invest in developing their own, sovereign, satellite communications networks. Evans agrees. “The Ukrainian situation has brought it a little bit to the fore,” he says. “People are very worried about the dominance that Starlink has got.”
In Ukraine, Ada Wordsworth says she is not aware of any alternative that could easily take the place of Starlink.
With Russia seemingly emboldened of late, she says a general feeling of hopelessness is setting in among locals who have returned home to villages near the front line. Many have nowhere else to go.
When asked what she would say to Elon Musk, she replies: “This isn’t a game. This isn’t a decision to be taken out of bitterness or out of spite, or some warped sense of power. This is real people’s lives.”
