European satellite operator Eutelsat has confirmed that their OneWeb network, which is the global constellation of broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that is still partly supported by the UK government, suffered a “temporary, 48-hour outage” over the New Year period that started on 31st December 2024.
OneWeb (aka – Eutelsat OneWeb) has 654 small (c.150kg) first generation (GEN1) LEO platforms in space – orbiting at an altitude of 1,200km above the Earth (c.600 of them for coverage and the rest for redundancy). The network was completed in March 2023 (here), promising both ultrafast broadband speeds and fast latency times. But a further 15 satellites (plus one GEN2 prototype) were then added in May 2023 for “resiliency and redundancy to the network” (here) and then 20 more in October 2024 (here).
However, a number of the platform’s business and other users noted that their internet connectivity was suddenly disrupted on New Year’s Eve, which then continued into the next day (the actual outage was more like 36+ hours). The issue is something that OneWeb has remained tight-lipped about, until now.
Apparently, the cause was a software glitch that occurred because OneWeb’s system timings had failed to take account of 2024 being a leap year, which is a rather surprising oversight for any company that specialises in space-based data connectivity and communications.
OneWeb’s Statement
Eutelsat (ISIN: FR0010221234 – Euronext Paris / London Stock Exchange: ETL), experienced a temporary, 48-hour outage on its OneWeb Low Orbit service, commencing on 31st December 2024.
The root cause was identified as a software issue within the ground segment. Eutelsat was fully mobilized and worked with the vendor to restore full service, while maintaining a constant dialogue with affected customers. The constellation is operating nominally once again.
Despite the somewhat embarrassing fault (that reminds us of the Y2K bug), we do still have to credit OneWeb with being honest about the cause, even if such services really need a better way of communicating with customers when outages like this occur (this has long been a problem in the satellite sector).
At the same time, this incident also goes to show the vulnerability of satellite communication systems, which can have rapid global impacts when they go wrong.