Musk’s Starlink receives satcom licence from government to offer services in India

This marks the end of a fiercely fought battle for India’s space waves, where Starlink came up against the country’s telecom giants Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, and differed with the former over how frequency for such airwaves should be assigned to satcom operators. While Starlink lobbied for administrative allocation, Jio made a pitch for the auction route. The government has opted for the administrative route, given that spectrum used for satellite communication is shared spectrum and is technically difficult to auction.

There is, however, a new battle brewing in the sector: over the pricing recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which the country’s private telecom operators are opposing, alleging the regulator’s recommendations to be low, which could create a non-level playing field between them and satcom operators.

The regulator has recommended that satcom operators pay 4% of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) as spectrum usage charges and an additional annual charge of Rs 500 per subscriber in urban areas. They will also have to pay 8% of their AGR as annual licence fee.

While the telcos and Starlink will compete against each other to offer their services in the country, a market that is expected to cater to largely well-to-do families in urban areas owing to the communication service’s higher cost, Starlink had inked separate retail partnerships with Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, and Airtel, for them to offer its service to their customers.

Satellite communication services rely on an array of satellites in orbit to offer connectivity to homes and businesses on the ground. They are an alternative to ground based communication, called terrestrial networks, such as cable, fibre, or digital subscriber line (DSL), and they don’t require wires to transmit data. Starlink operates the world’s largest satellite constellation, with around 7,000 satellites in orbit.

For end-users, satellite-based communication and broadband services offer benefits on two key points: wider coverage, and a more resilient network. Even though the latency of satcom services can at times be higher than terrestrial broadband networks, they can cover vast swathes of areas with very little physical equipment needing to be installed.

Last month, the DoT had released guidelines for satellite communication companies. The guidelines call for companies to set up local manufacturing, data localisation, use domestic navigation systems, implement a blocking mechanism, and cooperate with law enforcement agencies.

According to the guidelines, satcom companies will have to share with the government a year-wise phased manufacturing plan aiming at indigenisation to a level of at least 20% of their ground segment of the satellite network that is established at the end of 5 years after launching commercial operations.

The companies should also ensure provisioning of NavIC based positioning systems in their user terminals on “best effort basis,” along with a transition plan to implement NavIC in a time-bound manner by 2029. NavIC is India’s regional satellite navigation system, similar to GPS, which is a global system developed by the United States.

Companies will have to provide real time monitoring to ensure that no user traffic originating from, or destined for India is being routed through any gateway outside Indian territory. They will also have to submit an undertaking that they will not copy and decrypt Indian telecom data outside India.

Operators would need to implement service restriction to “any individual, group of subscribers or certain geographical areas” during “hostilities,” the guidelines said. These companies will have to seek separate clearance (“from security angle”) for voice service and data service. Satcom operators will also have to ensure that their data centres are based within the geographical boundary of India and shall make provision to provide Domain Name System (DNS) resolution within its territory.