Satcom airwaves to be assigned administratively: Government in parliament

The government has reiterated that spectrum for certain satellite-based communication services will be assigned administratively, or without auctions, but at a charge.

But there could be exceptions to this under the new Telecommunications Act to serve public interest, or to perform government function or where auction of spectrum is not the preferred mode of assignment due to technical or economic reasons, minister of state for communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said Wednesday in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

Towards this, the telecom department has sent a reference to the telecom regulator for recommendations on the terms and conditions of spectrum assignment, including spectrum pricing, for licensees who want to provide satcom services, while factoring in a level playing field with terrestrial access services, the minister said.



“TRAI is yet to provide their recommendations to DoT (Department of Telecommunications),” he added.

The government clarification comes amidst a fierce ongoing battle pitching global satellite firms such as Elon Musk-owned Starlink and Jeff Bezos-led Amazon Kuiper against India’s top telcos Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) over the allocation mode of satellite spectrum and its pricing to support broadband-from-space services.

India’s top telcos are seeking equal treatment of telecom and satcom services. They have urged the telecom regulator to permit only auctioned satellite spectrum for servicing urban or ‘retail’ consumers, saying Starlink, Amazon and others have a clear plan to offer satellite broadband services in urban areas and eventually compete with them directly. More so, since telcos have spent billions of dollars in buying spectrum for terrestrial networks.

The satellite firms, though, have rejected the telcos’ call for auctioning satellite spectrum, contending that since satcom airwaves are a shared resource, they cannot be auctioned.

Satellite broadband services can only start in India after the government finalises the rules on pricing and method of spectrum allocation, based on the recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Trai has said it is likely to offer those recommendations next month.

Currently, only the Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and a Reliance Jio-SES combine have the statutory clearances and permits to start satcom services in India soon. Applications of Starlink and Amazon-Kuiper among others are pending with Indian authorities. US-based Globalstar too is keen to expand its satellite broadband services to India.

India’s space sector regulator, IN-SPACe estimates that the country’s space economy has the potential to hit $44 billion by 2033, and account for about 8% of the global share from around 2% now.