Europe and Russia possess their own positioning systems—Galileo and Glonass—which serve as an alternative to American GPS. This trend is now being repeated in the satellite internet market with the emergence of two competitors to Starlink.
The most advanced is the Russian Rassvet system, assembled by the company Bureau 1440. Currently, about 20 satellites are in orbit, and the company's goal is to reach 156 satellites by the end of this year and 900 satellites by 2035. This is significantly fewer than Starlink's approximately 11 thousand satellites, but it is enough for Rassvet to function, which plans to provide global communication.
The Russian satellites are at an altitude of 900 km, which is higher than Starlink's (540–570 km), and they promise to transmit data at a speed of 1 Gbps, unlike Elon Musk's network at 400 Mbps.
The European system, named IRIS2, will consist of 264 satellites located at an altitude of 1200 km, but the launch of these satellites into orbit is only planned for 2029.