Starlink, Amazon stance prove satcom will compete with telcos: Reliance Jio

Comments made by Starlink and Amazon during the recent open house discussions prove that satellite communication service providers (satcom) will compete with terrestrial network providers and not simply serve “the un-served, remote areas in the country,” claimed Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited in its additional comments to the telecom regulator’s consultation paper.

Last Friday, there was heavy showdown between India’s legacy telecom players and satcom providers during the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s open house discussion regarding the process of spectrum allocation.

Following the row, Jio in its latest comments has said that the Friday back-and-forth proves that satcoms like Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper will  provide comparable or same-quality communication services, in all areas be it rural or urban.

• Also read: GDAI moots incubator framework to promote gaming start-up ecosystem

Claiming that satcoms changed their target customer base from “remote unserved areas” to “underserved user,” Reliance said, “This progression effectively concludes that the satcom services would be made available to anyone, anywhere, irrespective of the location and status of the coverage. This intent is also evident from very fact that few years back Starlink Internet Services had initiated pre-booking of its retail satellite-based internet services, which was open all across India be it urban or rural area.”

During last week’s discussion, Parnil Urdhwareshe, Director at Starlink Satellite Communications, rejected this idea first voiced by Ravi Gandhi, President at Reliance.

“It’s not a question of whether a user is under-served because an operator hasn’t gotten to them with a particular technology, it’s about whether that technology can be efficiently share that spectrum and usage,” Uddhwareshe had said.

In its additonal comments, Reliance also raised concerns about Starlink’s 75-80 satellites over Indian territory that form around 1.2 per cent of the 6,560 satellites operating in the Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) constellation.

“The number of satellite [of Starlink] currently available for India i.e. 1.2 per cent would only indicate a conservative figure, since the services are not available presently for Indian consumer. However, once services are launched in India, and considering the required concentration and capacity, the satellite positioning will be customized for India, potentially resulting in more than 2 per cent of the total satellite coverage being dedicated to the country,” said Reliance. Thus, it asked the government to examine the capacities created by these Mega NGSO constellations wherein each satellite would generate capacities of around 200 Gbps to 1 Tbps.

During the open house, Urdhwarashe had responded to this concern by saying, “India accounts for 0.6 per cent of the world surface area, which is an important factor in global NGSO systems. Determining their capacity in any one region is similar to saying that the majority of Jio, Bharti [Airtel] and Vodafone’s lakhs of mobile towers are located in an area the size of Nagaland.”

In the event that the government opts for administrative spectrum assignment, Jio asked that the total value of the shared spectrum be assessed as per the existing process of valuation and distributed proportionately among NGSO operators utilizing it.

It also mentioned other parameters for consideration such as service offering scope, competitive impact and cost balance.

• Also read: Gen AI, blockchain will challenge traditional business models, bankers say