Eutelsat’s share price meltdown continues and not helped by a group of unhappy residents of the UK’s Falkland Islands.
Local reports say that the Falkland Islands government “wants its money back” from an agreement which it entered into with local telco SURE and which provides national and international fixed line, mobile data and broadband services as well as data center and enterprise solutions to consumer and corporate customers. SURE is part of Bahrain’s Batelco Group and SURE’s coverage extends to the Ascension Islands and Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.
The problem is seemingly OneWeb. Mark Pollard, a member of the Falkland’s Legislative Assembly, speaking on January 30th, said that the telco had failed to introduce a promised service from OneWeb, which itself was supplied with capacity from Eutelsat and prime contractor Intelsat.
The service was expected to start in 2023, which would improve communication speeds and reduce latency. A parliamentary colleague Roger Spink, in the debate, asked how the Falkland Islands government would be compensated for the failure to deliver what was an agreed obligation. He also said perhaps it was time to start installing Starlink as an alternate.
Pollard responded by admitting that OneWeb’s services were more than a year overdue and if no commercial agreement was reached then legal actions would follow.
As to Eutelsat’s share price collapse, January 31st saw a further quite dramatic 3.41 per cent fall to just €1.73 (€0.06) per share. In other words, the past six months has seen Eutelsat’s share price tumble from an already low €4.57 to €1.73 per share.
Eutelsat will release its half-year trading results on February 14th.
