While this may sound welcoming and good, his plans may put him at odds with Mukesh Ambani‘s Reliance. Reason being that Musk’s Starlink wants India to just assign a licence for the service and not insist on auctioning the signal-carrying spectrum or airwaves. This stand of Musk is the same as that of the Tatas, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s OneWeb, and Amazon, who too prefer the same route. However, Ambani’s Reliance has not been in the favour of auction of spectrum for foreign satellite service providers to offer voice and data services to provide a level playing field to traditional telecom players who offer the same services using airwaves bought in government auctions.
Bharti Airtel believes auctioning SS spectrum will create barriers for competition as some may block access by winning the spectrum in spite of having no global allocation.
CLSA’s note and DoT licences
“India’s space-based communication services (SS) spectrum decision is key. Mobile spectrum has been auctioned since 2010 with the government’s cumulative sale of USD 77 billion and several players are keen on SS,” brokerage CLSA said in a note on ‘Satellite Spectrum Battle Ahead’.
According to the note, several players, including Starlink, are keen on the India satellite spectrum. Amazon’s Kuiper, Tata, Bharti Airtel-backed OneWeb, and Larsen & Toubro are against the auction. Reliance Jio and Vodafone-Idea support an India satellite spectrum auction.
The Department of Telecom has granted licences to Oneweb India and Jio Satellite Comm (in partnership with SES) but final SS policies are awaited. “A key decision for SS will be what method should be used to assign spectrum for user links (L-band & S-band): auction or administrative. This includes higher bands (C, Ku & Ka) and if this will be at national or circle level (like mobile),” it said.
(With agency inputs)
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