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Berlin has been paying for Ukraine's access to a satellite-internet network operated by France's Eutelsat, as Europe seeks alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Eutelsat’s chief executive Eva Berneke told Reuters the company has provided its high-speed satellite internet service to Ukraine for about a year via a German distributor.

[...]

Berneke said it was funded by the German government, but declined to comment on the cost.

Berneke said there were fewer than a thousand terminals connecting users in Ukraine to Eutelsat’s network, which is a small fraction of the roughly 50,000 Starlink terminals Ukraine says it has, but she said she expected the figure would rise.

"Now we're looking to get between 5,000 and 10,000 there relatively fast," she said, adding it could be "within weeks".

Asked whether Germany would also fund that additional provision, Eutelsat spokesperson Joanna Darlington said the issue was under discussion.

"We don’t know yet how the EU collectively or country by country will fund efforts going forward," Darlington said.

[...]

U.S. President Donald Trump’s more hostile approach to Ukraine since his return to the White House has sparked concern in Europe about reliance on Starlink.

It is part of rocket company SpaceX, owned by tech billionaire Musk who is close to Trump. Starlink provides crucial internet connectivity to Ukraine and its military in the war against Russia.

Eutelsat’s OneWeb division is Starlink’s main rival in providing high-speed internet satellite via low-Earth orbit satellites.

[...]

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[–] huppakee@lemm.ee 27 points 2 days ago
[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Oh I remember Eutelsat from the 90's sat TV, I had no idea they offer internet too.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 day ago

They merged with OneWeb in 2022 apparently. OneWeb was basically the only competitor to Starlink but without a connection to a rocket company so they went bankrupt and the UK government tried to save them and invested a huge amount of money.

[–] roserose56@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

They still carry sat TV! Not to mention sats, take a look! https://www.eutelsat.com/en/satellites.html

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How is that pronounced btw? I always used "eutel-sat", but now it occured to me that "e-u-tel-sat" is more likely to be correct?