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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

OneWeb goes bankrupt, lays off staff, will sell satellite-broadband business:

OneWeb has filed for bankruptcy and intends to sell its business, bringing an abrupt end to the company's plan to offer high-speed satellite Internet service around the world.

OneWeb announced Friday that it "voluntarily filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the [US] Bankruptcy Code," and "intends to use these proceedings to pursue a sale of its business in order to maximize the value of the company." OneWeb made the decision "after failing to secure new funding from investors including its biggest backer SoftBank," largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times wrote. OneWeb also "axed most of its staff on Friday," the FT article said.

OneWeb previously raised $3 billion over multiple rounds of financing and was seeking more money to fund its deployment and commercial launch. "Our current situation is a consequence of the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis," OneWeb CEO Adrián Steckel said in the bankruptcy announcement. "We remain convinced of the social and economic value of our mission to connect everyone everywhere."

The bankruptcy announcement came a week after OneWeb said it expected "delays to our launch schedule and satellite manufacturing due to increasing travel restrictions and the disruption of supply chains globally."

[...] OneWeb had already launched 74 satellites and demonstrated broadband speeds of more than 400Mbps with latency of 32ms. The company was a key competitor to SpaceX's Starlink division, which has launched 362 satellites and plans to launch thousands more. The satellites of both OneWeb and SpaceX operate in low Earth orbits, allowing them to provide much lower latency than traditional geostationary satellites.

OneWeb at one point was ahead of SpaceX in the satellite race, having secured Federal Communications Commission approval in June 2017, before SpaceX did. OneWeb planned to serve the United States and global markets from "720 low-Earth orbit satellites using the Ka (20/30GHz) and Ku (11/14GHz) frequency bands," the FCC noted at the time.

OneWeb's bankruptcy announcement noted that it owns the rights to "valuable global spectrum," which may entice a buyer. OneWeb said it has also "begun development on a range of user terminals for a variety of customer markets, [and] has half of its 44 ground stations completed or in development." The current deployment of 74 satellites is "too small to offer telecoms services or generate revenues," the Financial Times wrote.

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