New Delhi: Elon Musk wants his Starlink to transmit wireless internet to India from Earth-orbiting satellites, but the licensing arrangement backed by his group has put him at odds with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance. After meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York last week, Musk said on June 21 that he was looking forward to launching Starlink in India, which would be “incredibly helpful” in bringing internet to remote villages that lack ground infrastructure. It is possible
But Starlink wants India to license only the service and not insist on auctioning the spectrum or airwaves carrying the signal. This stance finds Musk favored by the Tatas, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s firm and Amazon, who also prefer the same route.
But Ambani’s Reliance says there should be an auction of spectrum for foreign satellite service providers to provide voice and data services to provide a level playing field to traditional telecom players who can offer similar services using airwaves bought in government auctions. provide.
“India’s space-based communication services (SS) spectrum decision is significant,” brokerage CLSA said in a note on ‘satellite spectrum’. The government has auctioned mobile spectrum since 2010 with cumulative sales of US$77 billion And many players are keen on SS.” fight ahead.
Based on comments provided by various companies to sector regulator TRAI’s consultation on the issue, CLSA said several players including Starlink are keen on India SS.
It added that Amazon’s Kuiper, Tata, Bharti Airtel-backed OneWeb and Larsen & Toubro are against the auction, while Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea support the Bharat SS auction.
Sources said some in the government believe that auction is the best route as it will give an opportunity to foreign companies to invest in the country. Also, it will allow some sort of regulation on the content that can be streamed on OTT platforms using SS.
Globally, the ITU manages spectrum, satellite orbit resources and coordinates the planning of new satellite networks to ensure interference-free SS. ITU coordinates orbit slots and frequency bands, but India will allocate spectrum to licensees for gateway links to satellites and user links (terminal and satellite).