Ujwala Mudivarti: Ground Terminal Engineer at SES Networks
Most people never think about how the internet works when someone is on a ship in the middle of the ocean, or living in a village where there are no cables or cell towers nearby. In most of these cases, the connection comes from a satellite up in space and on the ground, there is an engineer making sure everything works properly. Ujwala Mudivarti is one of those engineers, currently working as a Ground Terminal Engineer at SES Networks in the Washington, DC area.
Education and Certifications
Ujwala studied at George Mason University and finished a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications (Wireless) between 2015 and 2016. This degree covers how radio signals travel, how networks are built, and the technical side of wireless communication all directly relevant to the work done today.
Ujwala also holds an ITIL certification, which is a professional credential related to managing IT services. In an industry where service downtime has real consequences for customers, knowing how to handle that responsibility properly makes a practical difference every day.
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Career: Step by Step
First Job Software Engineer at IGATE
Ujwala started in January 2011 as a Software Engineer at IGATE and stayed there until February 2014 roughly three years before making the move into the satellite industry.
Moving to O3b Networks
February 2014 brought a major change. Ujwala joined O3b Networks, a company built around one clear goal connecting the three billion people worldwide who had no reliable internet. The name “O3b” literally came from that idea: Other Three Billion.
O3b’s satellites fly at about 8,000 km above Earth, which is far closer than traditional satellites sitting at around 36,000 km. That shorter distance means signals travel faster and with less delay, a meaningful advantage for end users who need responsive connections.
One detail worth mentioning: Ujwala joined in February 2014, but O3b did not officially open for customers until September 2014. That is a seven month gap meaning Ujwala was there during the testing and preparation phase, before any paying customer had connected.
Support Engineer at SES Networks
In 2016, SES bought O3b Networks entirely and folded it into a new division called SES Networks. Ujwala joined as a Support Engineer from February 2017 to March 2020 three years of finding and fixing problems, maintaining stability, and handling the technical side of day-to-day operations.
Ground Terminal Engineer Current Role
Since March 2020, Ujwala has been a Ground Terminal Engineer at SES Networks. The documented responsibilities cover building and managing ground systems reliably, reducing operational risk, and maintaining customer satisfaction.
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What SES Networks Actually Does
Three Orbits, One Network
SES runs satellites at three different heights simultaneously. GEO satellites at 36,000 km offer wide coverage but come with higher signal delay. MEO satellites at 8,000 km reach 96 percent of the world’s population with noticeably lower delay better suited for applications that need a fast response. LEO partnerships fill in the rest, with those systems orbiting between 500 and 2,000 km. Hardly any company in the world manages all three layers at once.
From O3b to mPOWER
The original O3b system started serving customers in September 2014. The next generation O3b mPOWER works very differently. Instead of covering areas with fixed capacity, it uses smart software to shift bandwidth in real time toward wherever demand is highest. Speeds range from a few megabits all the way to multiple gigabits depending on what each customer needs at that moment. By early 2026, ten of the thirteen planned mPOWER satellites were already up, with the remaining three scheduled for later that year.
The Day-to-Day Work
Antennas and RF Engineering
Satellites are always moving across the sky, so the dish on the ground has to continuously track them. Signals passing through the atmosphere can weaken or get mixed with interference from nearby systems. Ujwala’s expertise in antennas and radio frequency engineering directly addresses these challenges: diagnosing signal problems and maintaining a clean, stable link between space and ground is a core part of the job.
Linux and Network Tools
Most serious telecom infrastructure runs on Linux, and Ujwala’s documented skills include both Linux and network management systems. When something breaks and the cause is not immediately obvious, going deeper into the system past the surface dashboards is often the only way to find the actual problem.
What Makes This Work Challenging
Bad weather weakens signals in ways that cable-based networks simply never face. Satellite positions shift over time, requiring regular adjustments to ground equipment. Security threats are growing too; one compromised station can create problems for a large number of connected users at once. And because the technology itself keeps advancing, yesterday’s setup often needs revisiting tomorrow.
Professional Membership
Ujwala Niharika Mudivarti holds membership in Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI), a globally recognized organization for people across the satellite sector. It reflects active engagement with the wider industry beyond just one employer.
Why This All Matters
Remote hospitals run telemedicine over these links. Students in disconnected areas attend classes through them. Ships, disaster response teams, and governments in hard-to-reach places all depend on this type of connectivity staying reliable.
SES has built an AI-based system that automatically manages traffic across all three orbital layers, moving capacity around, predicting demand, and routing connections efficiently. That automation only functions well when the ground equipment underneath it is solid. A single unstable station creates issues that spread quickly across everyone connected through it.
That is what Ujwala Mudivarti’s work comes down to making sure the foundation holds, so everything built on top of it can actually deliver.
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