Even as the Telelcommunications Bill, 2023 has paved way for administrative allocation of satellite spectrum, Reliance Jio which was batting for auction of the airwave will not be at any disadvantage. It is just that now the company will now have to strongly compete with big tech players like Starlink, Amazon etc. Allocation of spectrum through auctions may have limited the competition only to the telecom players as it is unlikely that tech majors would have participated in it.
Unlike telecom, where owing to different nature of services each service provider has to have its own exclusive spectrum, satellite spectrum is a shared resource and no one player will have super holding on the basis of bidding strategy.
Satellite services are also different from telecom as the former is focussed on internet broadband services largely in low-lying areas where it is difficult to to provide telecom services. This in a way also reduces the target market size of the industry. This was also a factor to go for administrative allocation of satellite spectrum in the country, sources said.
Jio’s argument in favour of auctions during the Trai’s consultative process was based on one-service, one-rule principle. Citing legal opinions, Jio had also said since the spectrum will be used by companies for their individual gains, therefore any other method besides auction would be in violation of Article 14 of the constitution.
However, it is understood that the administrative allocation of spectrum to satellite companies will be for point-to-point communication that is from satellites to earth station gateway and in case satellite operators tend to provide access services just like telcos, they will have to participate in auctions.
“For any company to provide meaningful satellite communications services, there is a need for a complete constellation of satellites first as that is essential to provide continuous connectivity to consumers, enterprises, and for other use cases,” said Shivaji Chatterjee, president and managing director of Hughes Communications India.
According to Chatterjee, OneWeb is expected to lead the satcom market as the company not only has got the necessary approvals, but also has an ample constellation to provide services. OneWeb, which was recently named as Eutelsat OneWeb features more than 630 satellites along 12 synchronised orbital planes 1,200 km above, in low Earth orbit (LEO).
Lately, Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises had said OneWeb would be service-ready by November end.
In comparison, Jio in October had also demonstrated India’s first satellite-based gigabit Internet service JioSpaceFiber, which can potentially be used to provide high-speed Internet services to inaccessible areas in the country. The company has connected four remote locations with JioSpaceFiber — Gir in Gujarat, Korba in Chattisgarh, Nabarangpur in Odisha, and Jorhat in Assam, using the spectrum on trial.
Jio has a joint venture with SES to provide high-performance satellite-based broadband services across India. The companies will provide medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite internet.
Experts in the know said that Jio can lag behind in terms of capturing the market share in satellite space, only owing to less number of MEO satellites. SES currently has launched only 6 MEO satellites. However, for ubiquitous and interference-free coverage the satellites volume has to be increased in the space, experts said.
Since MEO satellites orbit between 10,000 and 20,000 kilometers above earth, it gives greater ground coverage than LEO as well as have a average life cycle of 9-10 years, which is better than LEO. However, LEO satellites have lower latency. Companies such as OneWeb, Starlink, etc are using LEO satellites to provide services.
“Unpredictability will not be there in the market now with administrative allocation. Now, the competition will be on the basis of concrete business plan, usecases, and technological innovation,” said AK Bhatt, director general of Indian Space Association (ISpA).
According to a joint report by ISpA and Deloitte, the market potential of broadband connectivity through satellite in the rural area, is expected to be $263 million over the next five years.