War in Ukraine continues to rattle telecom industry

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has begun to affect a large and growing number of companies in the global telecom industry. Here are some of the latest developments:

• As reported by CNBC, Russian space agency Roscosmos has refused to launch more than 30 satellites for OneWeb. At issue are the UK’s sanctions against Russia for its invasion. The UK partly helped to finance OneWeb’s escape from bankruptcy; Russia is demanding that the UK sell its stake in OneWeb. OneWeb is one of a handful of companies hoping to build a global constellation of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites for Internet services. As noted by Ars Technica, OneWeb currently operates 428 satellites and hopes to grow that number to 648, in part to launch commercial services later this year.
• Russian regulators continue to work to impede some Internet services in Russia. For example, Reuters reported that Russian authorities are trying to block a Wikipedia article that discusses the death of Ukrainian civilians as well as the advance of Russian forces into the country.
• iPhone vendor Apple has halted sales in Russia, a country of around 144 million people. “Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country,” the company told CNBC. “Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia. And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens.” Apple is not alone. Telecom companies enacting similar actions include Nokia and Ericsson. Ford, Exxon, Volkswagen, Dell and Nike are among other companies that have also suspended operations or sales in Russia.

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