Top 10 Starlink Competitors and Alternatives in 2025
The massive demand for high-speed internet in every corner of the world has sparked a revolution in an otherwise languishing satellite industry. Because in the future it will not only be fibre-optic cables and mobile masts that ensure fast broadband.
In record time, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and CEO of aerospace company SpaceX, has sent over 5,000 satellites into orbit 500 kilometres above Earth in so-called low Earth orbit. From there, they deliver fast internet connections with a speed of over 100 Mbit/s to drones in Ukraine, people in remote areas with poor broadband coverage, and companies in need of uninterrupted internet connection.
However, as impressive as that feat is, many European countries are hesitant to use Musk’s Starlink network for fear of becoming dependent on the notoriously erratic billionaire.
But there are also other options. With Danish businesswoman Eva Berneke at the helm, French satellite operator Eutelsat has bought British company OneWeb, the only operator apart from SpaceX that has a full satellite constellation in low Earth orbit.
Ingeniøren talked to Eva Berneke over a video call from Paris one early morning, and she explained how a combination of Eutelsat’s 36 geostationary TV satellites and OneWeb’s 648 communications satellites can create a global internet coverage that matches Starlink both in terms of technology and price.
“Elon Musk had the right vision when he reduced the price of launching a kilogramme to space. Until a few years ago, it cost a fortune. He has—in a good way—shaken up the aerospace industry with his reusable rockets. But Starlink is also a complicated and costly solution for global internet coverage. Here, the combination of satellites in geostationary and low Earth orbit will be a game changer,” says Eva Berneke, who was CEO of TDC and the IT group KMD before she moved to Paris in 2022 and took up the position of CEO at Eutelsat.
New purpose for old satellites
From Earth, Eutelsat’s geostationary TV satellites appear to be motionless in the night sky. This is because they move at the same speed as Earth rotates. With just three geostationary satellites, it is possible to achieve almost full global coverage.
Illustration: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix.
The problem with geostationary satellites is the unavoidable delay in the signal caused by the long journey from satellite to ground receiver. It is simply physically impossible to get below 500–600 milliseconds delay when data has to travel 35,000 km.
“It doesn’t matter when you’re streaming Netflix or watching a football match. But it’s noticeable when you have a video meeting or otherwise communicate in real time. Therefore, it makes sense to combine the wide coverage of geostationary satellites and satellites with high bandwidth in low Earth orbit,” Eva Berneke says.
And it is precisely that kind of satellites that Eutelsat gained access to by taking over the British company OneWeb and its 648 satellites last year. And the work to integrate the two types of satellites into a so-called multi-orbit network has now begun, according to the Danish CEO.
“I myself come from the telecommunications sector, where users have for years jumped between 3G, 4G, and 5G, depending on the best available coverage. I thought, why not try to do the same with satellites? This is what we are doing with the world’s first multi-orbit network, where the connection jumps between satellites in geostationary and low Earth orbit.”
She believes that this strategy is in many ways different and more flexible than SpaceX’s:
“SpaceX’s approach is to roll out 5G across the whole globe at the same time. It’s an expensive and not necessarily very efficient use of the capacity. It’s smarter to deploy capacity as needed. For example, there isn’t a huge demand for bandwidth over the world’s oceans.”
While Starlink has a plan to eventually send 42,000 satellites into orbit, OneWeb is content with an additional 500 satellites over the next five years. This is because OneWeb’s satellites are in a higher orbit, 1,200 kilometres above Earth, so each individual satellite covers a larger area.
In addition, with the purchase of OneWeb, Eutelsat has secured an ace up its sleeve because OneWeb’s founder Greg Wyler was among the first to believe in satellite broadband. In space, it is not possible to buy priority for the best frequencies like at Danish spectrum auctions, which regularly bring in billions of DKK to the state. In the satellite industry, the ability to predict frequency demand, and not least speed, is absolutely crucial, because it is the first-come, first-served principle that is most important.
“We have first priority on the Ku-band (10.9–12.75 GHz, ed.) ahead of Starlink, which must give way if their satellites shield ours. If you end up at the back of the queue, you need a lot of satellites in orbit, because you have to be ready to switch off satellites if they overshadow those at the front of the queue,” Eva Berneke explains.
That will probably be a factor limiting the number of constellations in low Earth orbit to a few global players. The price of being number four or five is simply too high. The first-come, first-served principle may even end up costing Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos his dream of outcompeting Elon Musk in space. Because if Amazon does not soon send over 1,000 satellites into space, Bezos will lose his place in the frequency priority queue.
Problematic French rockets
The great technological avalanche in the space industry really began to take off in 2010, when NASA decided to significantly increase its investments in space technology. Although Europe is keeping up with America and is good at manufacturing satellites and ground stations, there is a big gap in the ecosystem.
“The Race to Space has intensified in the last seven or eight years and has exploded in recent years, when Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have really shaken up the industry. The biggest problem for Europe right now is that we don’t actually have access to space, because Arianespace is not really able to carry out launches,” Eva Berneke says.
French launch service provider Arianespace is the only European company that, on paper, has the necessary capacity to launch large constellations of satellites to orbit. The problem is that the company’s five launch vehicles, Ariane 5, Ariane 6, Vega, and Vega C, are either on their way to retirement or have been hit by massive delays and problems. In fact, the European Space Agency, ESA, currently has to resort to SpaceX to get its satellites into space.
“As it currently stands, we have to turn to either the USA, India, Japan, or China. With China out of the picture, the competition narrows significantly. It’s extremely important that we get Arianespace back on track, so that we have at least one European launcher that can send entire constellations into orbit,” the Danish CEO of Eutelsat says.
SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets are seen by many as perhaps the biggest technological breakthrough in modern aerospace history because the rocket has made space accessible to more people. But even if it is to a large extent Elon Musk and SpaceX who can take credit for Falcon 9, it is important to remember the government’s support and funding, Eva Berneke points out.
“Over the years, NASA has spent more than 10 billion dollars on purchases from SpaceX,” she says and at the same time mentions that the U.S. military is the largest single customer of all satellite operators in the world.
Although Eutelsat, with the acquisition of OneWeb, is the closest Europe gets to a space giant, Eva Berneke will not try to expand the business and focus on the entire value chain, from rockets over satellites to terminals.
“Instead, we believe in a broad ecosystem. In France, we work with the telecommunications companies, who can very precisely identify the areas where they do not want to roll out fibre and 5G. We can then sell the satellite connection as an alternative there.”
Right now, OneWeb is testing internet connection over Greenland together with the Greenlandic telecommunications company Tusass.
War in Ukraine is led from space
Another important lesson is that satellite systems should not be developed and reserved for specific tasks.
“Satellite constellations are simply notoriously expensive, and this means that they must be used optimally to make a profit. That’s why one can’t make constellations that only solve specific tasks, for example military or civilian, and they have realised that in the USA,” Eva Berneke says.
However, using satellites in this way also requires increased security. That was clearly demonstrated on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Just as the first Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine, the connection to Viasat’s geostationary TV satellites, which the Ukrainian military, in the absence of a better alternative, used to control movement of supplies such as tents and tanks, stopped working. The Russians were aware of that fact, and that is why they attacked the satellite terminals on the ground with malware.
Shortly thereafter, Starlink was activated over Ukraine, where it has since served as a central communication channel for both civilians and the Ukrainian military. Elon Musk has threatened to cut that connection several times, and the EU wants to avoid such scenarios at all costs. Therefore, the EU also set the goal of securing technological independence from both the USA and Asia.
Specifically, the European Commission has set out to create European satellite coverage, which will be used for high-risk communications, for example military and diplomatic, just as the satellites will become a platform for the development of quantum encryption.
“There are many more 9th grade students who can spell sovereignty today than there were before the coronavirus pandemic. Willingness to invest in energy, telecommunications, and communication has grown significantly, and this opens up new possibilities for innovation and new technology,” Eva Berneke says.
The future EU satellites go by the name Iris2, and Eutelsat, in a consortium of European satellite companies, has the sole bid to develop and operate the system.
“Together with the EU, we are trying to strike the balance between meeting the tough military requirements and the civilian ones, for example providing broadband in remote areas that do not have fibre or 5G coverage. It is the only way to create economically profitable satellite connections.”
