India offers over Rs 1 lakh cr digital connectivity opportunity: BIF President

New Delhi, India has a digital connectivity opportunity worth Rs 1 lakh crore at a conservative estimate, which can be largely achieved through satellite communication services, a senior official of industry body BIF said on Tuesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 10th edition of India Satcom 2026, Broadband India Forum (BIF) President TV Ramachandran said an analysis of data published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) shows that around 50 crore or more people in rural India are still not connected to broadband.

"There are more than 50 crore people who are still unconnected, mostly in rural and remote parts of the country. Even if we consider low ARPU from these areas, the present opportunity is at least around Rs 1 lakh crore per annum at present. These people are not connected because the terrestrial network has not reached them. They can be largely served by satcom services," he said.


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According to Ramachandran, 60 to 70 per cent of the country's population depends on agriculture and at present there is no way of launching or reaching networks in a viable way to fields.

"But you can modernise agriculture and improve the yields. Our yields are one of the lowest in the world. So there is ample scope for improving that. We can have IoT flooding the fields that can be connected by satcom to collect and monitor agriculture data and improve yields," he said.

Ramachandran said satcom airwaves in the rural areas can help provide good connectivity to private enterprises.

"If people want to set up a factory in a rural area, labour will be cheap and there are plenty of available people. These enterprises can utilise satcom connectivity in rural areas," he said.

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Speaking at the event, Department of Telecom Member (Finance) Manish Sinha said the future of telecom networks is not just satellite versus terrestrial, or telecom versus space, but an integrated communication system which has fibre, mobile, wifi and satellite connectivity.

"The policy challenge is to build bridges between all these technologies. We have the market, talent, institutional capability, and we need to deploy all of it to ensure that there is a seamless relationship between all these technologies, and that together they help us to grow and strengthen the telecom infrastructure that we have around the country," he said.

Sinha said that there is no doubt that satellites can contribute significantly to the digital infrastructure, support schools, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, aviation, maritime services, critical infrastructure and disaster management, while also extending connectivity to communities that conventional networks may find difficult to reach.

"Now our objective is not only to connect to more and more people. We have to make it affordable, reliable, resilient, and available at all times. So as we move towards Viksit Bharat, our digital infrastructure must be capable of reaching every geography, supporting every sector, and remain dependable in times of disruption," he said.

Sinha said that the DoT is working in close coordination with the Department of Space, InSpace, and other stakeholders on digital connectivity through satellites.

"We are in the business of delivering broadband to the customers. The authorisation framework, for instance, already enables satellite-based voice messaging, IoT-based services, and data, and it aims particularly to serve the rural, remote, and underserved areas in the country. We are also making all these regulations technology-neutral, and hope to introduce new technology like GEO, NEO and high-throughput satellite systems," he said.

The government has given permission to three satellite companies - Elon Musk-led Starlink, Jio Satellite Communications and Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, to provide satcom services in India.

The satcom companies need to get security clearances for their services from security agencies before rolling out commercial operations.