India plans safe space for local satellite communications players

New Delhi: Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and other global satcom players may have to necessarily coordinate with similar Indian constellations, like the one proposed by Jio, to secure spectrum and offer services locally, top official sources told ET. This seeks to ensure unhindered domestic presence in space communications.

The Centre, said the sources cited above, is likely to include provisions about coordination in the upcoming draft spectrum assignment rules for global non geostationary (NGSO) satcom players to be published by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

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"The move is being considered in the bid to ensure that global players don't block or thwart the entry of Indian players in the space communications sector," said a person aware of the pertinent details.

With the Centre and space regulator IN-SPACe aiming to strengthen the satcom sector in general and Indian constellations in particular, there needs to be some kind of guarantee to ensure that operations of local players are not blocked by global satcom providers that have already secured approvals.

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National Security Matter

So far, Elon Musk-owned Starlink, Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio’s joint venture with Luxembourg-based SES have secured approvals from the space regulator and a permit from the DoT for their NGSO constellations. To be sure, none of them have got security approvals so far and spectrum is yet to be allocated to them.

Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon Leo has applied for approvals but is yet to secure a go-ahead from either the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) or the DoT.

The Centre is of the opinion that global players already have an edge in terms of securing their preferred orbital slots and may use that to block any potential Indian entry in the field by refusing to coordinate. “If they refuse coordination, the latter satcom entrant faces interference issues and may not be able to launch services,” said an official.

Satcom players have to tune their infrastructure including satellites and earth stations and tilt angles of the receivers to avoid interference. Such a mechanism works when both parties coordinate but the existing player always has an edge and the new entrant must accommodate more tweaks to adjust their systems.

National security is a top priority for the Indian government, especially in satellite communications as such networks operate outside the physical boundaries of a country. Conflicts such as the West Asia war, where Starlink terminals were found to have been used inside Iran despite a ban there, have raised alarms within the security circles in India.

Hence, the Centre is supporting the development of Indian constellations as the space sector is critical to national security, particularly for defence-related aspects.

The orbital parameters, configuration and architecture of the Jio constellation is planned in a way that allows coexistence with another Indian constellation in future, said another official. This has been done on expectations that another Indian NGSO constellation may come up in future, said the official.

Jio plans to offer fixed satellite services such as broadband, cellular backhaul as well as mobile satellite services like direct to device. The company plans to set up 20-22 ground stations and offer nearly 4-4.5 tera bit per second (Tbps) throughput over India, the highest among the global players that have secured the green light so far.