India: After Army, Navy uses Europe’s OneWeb satellites to support missions

Over the last nine months, as part of their respective missions, the Indian Army and the Indian Navy have used the services of Europe’s Eutelsat OneWeb internet-beaming satellites. Eutelsat OneWeb operates a constellation of 648 satellites, which can beam high-speed internet to portable receivers almost anywhere on Earth. The Indian military using this European commercial service is a significant development, as the Indian Government does not possess similar internet-beaming satellite constellations to support its requirements. The French Government, British Government, and India’s Bharti Group are among the major investors in Eutelsat OneWeb.

The Indian Army first used OneWeb’s services while undertaking humanitarian assistance duties in earthquake-hit Myanmar under ‘Operation Brahma’ in April 2025. Likewise, in November-December, the Army team rendering assistance to Cyclone-hit Sri Lanka during ‘Operation Sagar Bandhu’ were using OneWeb terminals. The Indian Navy’s INSV Kaundinya is the latest to have deployed OneWeb terminals during its 1,400 km voyage between Gujarat, India and Muscat, Oman. INSV Kaundinya is a traditionally built stitched-plank sailing vessel inspired by ancient Indian shipbuilding techniques. The voyage retraced historic maritime trade routes, showcasing India’s rich seafaring legacy while promoting maritime innovation and national pride.

Eutelsat’s OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite connectivity technology has been deployed and remains operational onboard Kaundinya, enabling reliable, real-time communications throughout the journey, the firm announced. Given the vessel’s traditional design and the absence of conventional communication infrastructure, OneWeb’s LEO technology served as the sole connectivity link for the expedition.

Notably, OneWeb satellite internet is specifically meant to connect the unconnected, and serve disaster-hit regions, remote places where no communication infrastructure (internet cables or telecom towers) exists: such as high seas, deserts, mountains. The company offers its niche services to Governments, defence customers, business entities.

According to Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of the Indian Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) and a core member of the Kaundinya crew and its project architect, “Throughout the voyage, having reliable satellite connectivity from Airtel OneWeb has been invaluable for the crew. It has allowed us to stay connected with shore-based teams, supporting communication, live feeds, and above all morale during long and sometimes challenging periods at sea.”

ISRO launched 72 OneWeb satellites

Few years ago, on a commercial basis, Indian space agency ISRO had placed a total of 72 OneWeb satellites in orbit. The first launch with 36 satellites was performed in October 2022, while the second launch was carried out in March 2023. Both launches were carried out by the LVM3 rocket, the largest Indian spacefaring vehicle. Notably, these were the first two commercial flights of LVM3, which till then had only launched Indian Government satellites.

Growing competition to deploy Internet-beaming satellite constellations

Estimates from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs) say that one-third of the world's population is not connected to the internet or might not have access to high-speed internet. This is owing to a mix of economic reasons, societal divide, technological barriers, electricity problems, digital literacy gaps etc.

Conventional internet cables and telecom infrastructure are laid only in highly populated regions and areas with a large consumer base. In contrast, it is unviable and too expensive to lay down similar communication infrastructure in sparsely populated regions, mountains, forests, islands.

A fleet of satellites in Low Earth orbit can help bridge a large part of this connectivity gap and offer high-speed internet for such remote regions. Which is why there are multiple business entities such as Europe's Eutelsat OneWeb, Elon Musk's Starlink, Jeff Bezos' Amazon Leo (formerly Project Kuiper), China's Guowang and Qianfan that are competing for this lucrative market.

In simple terms, they want to ensure that there no major internet connectivity blind spots in most parts of the world. Such services can also enable high-speed internet access onboard moving platforms such as airplanes, ships, trains. Such LEO-based constellations serve military applications as well, as they offer significantly better capabilities than conventional communication satellites placed in higher geostationary orbits (36,000 km above Earth).