Eutelsat-OneWeb is the industry’s favorite Frankenstein experiment: graft a struggling GEO TV operator to a half-built LEO constellation and hope the two dying business models cancel each other’s weaknesses. Spoiler: they don’t.

Eutelsat spent the better part of a decade denying that LEO was necessary, clinging to broadcast revenues like it was still 2005. Then, when cord-cutting and fiber finally destroyed the party, they panicked and grabbed OneWeb, the constellation that was already bankrupt once, bailed out by the UK government mostly because London couldn’t stand the humiliation of watching Starlink dominate unchallenged. It’s less a marriage and more a shotgun wedding between two companies running out of options.

The problem is structural. GEO video is a melting ice cube, and OneWeb’s network is frozen in time, designed for pre-Starlink economics. Ku-band, ~600 satellites, no inter-satellite links, and a wholesale-only model that forces them to depend on telcos and resellers who don’t really want to be stuck pushing a half-measure when SpaceX is dropping antennas out of the sky like candy.

Add in regulatory pressure, Europe’s “sovereign connectivity” dreams, the UK’s delusional Brexit-space ambitions, and you’ve got a constellation that exists less because it makes sense and more because governments refuse to admit they bet on the wrong horse.

From a technical standpoint, OneWeb isn’t useless. It works, coverage is global, and there are niches, maritime, aviation, certain enterprise backhaul, where customers don’t want to deal with Elon’s mood swings or ITAR headaches. But it’s hard to escape the gravity of being second-best in a market that rewards scale. And Eutelsat doesn’t have the balance sheet or risk appetite to scale LEO the way Starlink can.

Financially, this thing is a millstone. Eutelsat already had sluggish growth, now it’s straddled with a capex-hungry constellation that will need a replacement cycle before it’s even fully monetized. They talk about “synergies” between GEO and LEO, but it usually comes across as PowerPoint fodder: bundling dying TV contracts with a mid-tier connectivity play isn’t exactly a masterstroke.

Politically, though, the merger guarantees survival, for a while. France and the UK both get to pretend they have a national champion in space. Brussels can wave it around as proof that Europe won’t be colonized by Starlink. Whether customers actually care is another story.

In short, Eutelsat-OneWeb is a constellation-shaped subsidy scheme dressed up as strategy. It might limp along on government contracts, mobility carve-outs, and regulatory walls, but it’s not a growth story. It’s Europe buying itself time to figure out if it actually wants to be in LEO or just wants to look like it is.