The ball is now within the courtroom of the telecom regulator, which not too long ago concluded an intense session course of, culminating in a marathon open-house dialogue on July 14 that lasted virtually 12 hours with about 30 audio system from internationally urgent their views.
Throughout the session, the massive satellite tv for pc entities warned that auctions would make broadband from house providers unaffordable in India and deprive thousands and thousands, significantly in rural and underserved areas, of high-speed satellite tv for pc web connectivity.
After the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) makes its suggestions, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will take the ultimate name.
Market potential
The stakes are excessive. EY estimates India’s house financial system will develop to $13 billion by 2025 from an annual income alternative of $1 billion now.
Discover the tales of your curiosity
Global gamers akin to Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, OneWeb and Telesat amongst others are all eyeing the nascent satellite tv for pc broadband market in India. Nearly 75% of rural India does not have broadband entry and lots of places nonetheless lack mobile or fibre connectivity. As a outcome, satellite tv for pc programs that may be rolled out so much faster than terrestrial telecom networks in rural and distant areas are seen as a viable different to attach the unconnected. The DoT has already issued world cell private communication by satellite tv for pc providers (GMPCS) permits to OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s satellite tv for pc arm. Starlink too is more likely to be granted a licence in coming months. Apart from these companies, Amazon’s Project Kuiper has evinced curiosity in coming into the world’s second-largest telecom market with quick broadband providers utilizing satellites. Several Indian firms akin to Tata-backed Nelco are eyeing the market. All satellite tv for pc gamers, although, may even require key approvals for touchdown rights and market entry in addition to clearances for establishing in-country earth stations from IN-SPACe, the house providers regulator.
These approvals are very important for satcom gamers to make use of their world low earth orbit (LEO) constellations and launch broadband-from-space providers in India. India’s not too long ago unveiled Space Policy 2023 has empowered IN-SPACe to behave as the only real single-window company to authorise the gamut of house actions by each authorities and personal satcom gamers.
What’s at stake
Satcom gamers, usually, require spectrum within the Ka (27.5 to 29.1 GHz and 29.5 to 30 GHz) and Ku (14 GHz) bands for delivering satellite tv for pc broadband providers in India. Going ahead, they may even want airwaves within the Q / V bands (37.5-52.4 GHz) to run next-gen satellite tv for pc programs.
Accordingly, they consider forcing a spectrum public sale would damage the business viability of satellite tv for pc communications in India and rob the nation of billions of {dollars} in potential overseas direct funding (FDI) within the satcoms house.
Their rationale: satellite tv for pc spectrum can’t be damaged down into unique blocks or chunks as within the case of terrestrial airwaves for auctions because it’s a shared useful resource. Auctioning these airwaves, they are saying, will trigger fragmentation, set off inefficiencies and go in opposition to the spectrum administration guidelines laid down by the International Telecom Union (ITU) and India’s National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP).
Global situation
Amazon says an public sale could be an inappropriate methodology for assigning satellite tv for pc spectrum as it could lead to increased costs for patrons and stifle competitors. It might grant entities able to submitting the very best bids exclusivity over that spectrum, blocking different potential customers and, in flip, artificially limiting competitors to only a few gamers.
“Trai itself acknowledges that around the world there is no precedent of auctioning spectrum in the higher frequency bands for satellite communication services,” Amazon stated in its current submission to the regulator. “In the year 2000, the US legally prohibited satellite spectrum from being auctioned by enacting the Orbit Act, while Brazil and Mexico have also abandoned auction processes.”
Even Thailand’s makes an attempt to public sale airwaves for satellite tv for pc utilization had been unsuccessful, it stated. The nation’s National Broadcasting & Telecommunications Commission noticed simply two bidders–one of which was a government-owned firm–after it carried out an public sale for orbital slots.
Anirudh Rastogi, founder and managing associate of Ikigai Law, backs this view. No authorities has ever auctioned satellite tv for pc spectrum and former makes an attempt like these within the US, Brazil and Mexico associated to orbital slots solely, he stated. An orbital slot could also be likened to a parking slot in house for a satellite tv for pc to function at a specific frequency and supply satcom providers over a specific nation.
“Auctions, in general, don’t work for the satcom business model and these countries (US, Brazil and Mexico) were unsuccessful in attracting bidders, resulting in their abandoning `auctions’ altogether as an approach towards distributing satcom resources,” stated the Ikigai Law founder.
Ikigai is a tech-focused regulation agency that advises among the world’s largest satellite tv for pc service gamers.
The counter
India’s telecom market chief Jio disagrees and is strongly backing the public sale route, underlining the criticality of the ‘same service, same rules’ precept for satellite tv for pc airwaves allotment to stop imbalanced competitors. Its view is that firms akin to Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon-backed Kuiper and Telesat could be in direct competitors with India’s prime telcos to seize a bit of the rising multi-billion-dollar satellite tv for pc broadband income pie.
Last 12 months, Reliance-backed Jio Platforms and Luxembourg-based SES shaped a 51:49 three way partnership to ship broadband providers in India by means of satellites, coming into an area the place the likes of Sunil Mittal-led OneWeb, Starlink, Amazon and the Tatas had already introduced forays.
“Auctioning satellite spectrum emerges as the sole viable strategy to guarantee a balanced competitive landscape amongst competing providers as the business plans of Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper and Telesat indicate they are strategically planning their networks to compete with terrestrial communication service providers (in India),” Jio not too long ago advised Trai.
The Mukesh Ambani-owned telco added that the business plans of Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon-Kuiper and Telesat additionally emphasise the allocation of considerable capability for entry providers, demonstrating their express intention to instigate competitors with terrestrial networks. “Hence, it’s crucial to ensure spectrum assignment rules for networks offering competing services are uniform and fair, without granting any stakeholder a preferential treatment,” Jio stated.
Vodafone Idea, which can be backing auctions, referred to as the satellite tv for pc trade’s name for administrative allocation within the identify of ringing in inexpensive broadband providers, a misrepresentation of details.
During the current session, Vi advised Trai that some space-based communications suppliers cost a steep £75 a month for providers and £449 for {hardware} within the UK and as a lot as $120 a month for providers and $599 for {hardware} assist within the US. “Even if such prices are normalised to the Indian context, it indicates that the services will not be targeted at providing connectivity to users in India’s rural and remote areas but primarily in urban/towns/cities and commercial areas of the country,” it stated.
Amazon rejected the ‘same service, same rules’ precept, saying this isn’t relevant since satellite tv for pc operators share spectrum in contrast to cell service programs that require unique use of airwaves by terrestrial cell operators.
“Given that fixed-satellite service (FSS) and mobile service (MS) systems are so fundamentally different in their use of spectrum, and the services provided through these different systems are also not similar, applying the same rules to both will result in unfair and unequal treatment,” it stated.
Musk’s Starlink has backed Amazon, saying the argument over ‘same service, same rules’ is deceptive and disingenuous. “Just because terrestrial operators refuse to deploy a technology capable of sharing spectrum with competitors, does not mean that Trai should ignore the reality of a satellite ecosystem that allows all systems to simultaneously share spectrum,” Starlink stated in its Trai submission.
Interestingly, Bharti Group-backed Airtel is the only real telco opposing an public sale because it feels such a transfer might land Indian gamers at an obstacle in opposition to world operators.
“Airtel is concerned that auctioning the satellite spectrum and creating an exclusiveness will create barriers for competition as rivals may block access to it by bidding and winning partial or full spectrum in spite of having no such global allocation, and make satellite systems redundant and severely hamper the emerging space ecosystem in the country,” it stated.
Global satellite tv for pc gamers have additionally underlined challenges in figuring out correct base value of satellite tv for pc spectrum.
“Satellite spectrum has different use cases, from feeder links, backhaul, retail, broadcast, VSAT, DTH to DSNG (digital satellite news gathering),” Hughes Communications India stated in its submission to the regulator. “It’s very difficult to arrive at a reserve price as the revenue potential for each of these use cases is different and any segmentation of satellite spectrum will reduce its usability/efficiency by the operators and further reduce its value.”
Over to DoT
Industry consultants say the way forward for the India satellite tv for pc broadband alternative will in the end hinge on the place that DoT takes on the spectrum allotment mode.
Amid the fierce struggle over the mode of satellite tv for pc spectrum allotment, DoT has backed auctions as the popular mode, aligning with Jio and Vi’s stance. A prime DoT official not too long ago advised ET that satcom airwaves have to be given to the very best bidder as there are various firms vying to enter the market, and likewise for the reason that bandwidth could be used for business functions. The authorities is of the view that satellite tv for pc spectrum can be utilized in accessing prospects, identical to cell networks, which builds the case for auctions as the best technique to allocate such airwaves.
Ex-attorney basic Mukul Rohatgi not too long ago backed the executive allocation of spectrum for satellite tv for pc providers, whereas providing his authorized opinion on queries raised by the Broadband India Forum (BIF), which counts tech and satcom companies like OneWeb, Nelco, Amazon, Hughes, Inmarsat, Microsoft, Google, Netflix and Meta amongst its key members.
DoT is confronted with making some onerous selections when it will definitely decides which technique to go—auctions or allocations—as soon as Trai makes its suggestions.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com