PARIS, April 4 (Reuters) - Berlin has been paying for Ukraine’s access to a satellite-internet network operated by France’s Eutelsat (ETL.PA), opens new tab, 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.
Speaking at the company’s headquarters in Paris on Thursday, she said it was funded by the German government, but declined to comment on the cost.
Bernese 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”.