In a significant showdown over the process of allocation of spectrum on Friday, telecom giants Bharti Airtel (Airtel) and Reliance Jio (Jio) clashed with Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon Kuiper, who are awaiting approval to launch their satellite services in India.

In an open house discussion (OHD) organised by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on a consultation paper titled ‘Terms and Conditions for the Assignment of Spectrum for Certain Satellite-Based Commercial Communication Services’, telecom service providers (TSPs) Airtel and Jio maintained their stance to auction the spectrum for Satcom, while Starlink and Amazon argued for providing the spectrum through the administrative route.

Spectrum concerns

The main argument put forward by Mukesh Ambani’s Jio and Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel is that allocating satellite broadband airwaves at a pre-decided price by the government will create an uneven playing field since they had to compete in an auction to obtain spectrum for their terrestrial wireless phone networks.

Ravi Gandhi, President at Reliance, asserted that his company is “not afraid of competition”. In fact, he said, it is the entities seeking to enter this space via satellite who fear competition.

“We (TSPs) are operating in a hyper-competitive market. We are not afraid of competition. It is the other way around. The entities that want to enter this space via satellite are afraid of competition, and that’s why they want all this kind of protection and get spectrum for free,” Gandhi said.

Investment security

Rahul Vatts, Chief Regulatory Officer at Airtel, stepped forward by asserting that the massive investments made by traditional companies in the last three decades must be safeguarded.

“The issue of creating a level playing field is crucial for the balanced growth of the entire ecosystem. So, while it is important to encourage satcom services in traditional markets and traditional use cases, it is equally important to safeguard the significant investments made to the tunes of lakhs of crores of rupees, by traditional operators in the last three decades,” he stressed.

He argued that the price of the satellite spectrum must be set in a manner that it ensures a level playing field and that competitive forces remain addressed in that sense.

Not to be outdone, Parnil Urdhwareshe, Director at Starlink Satellite Communications, asserted that “intelligent consumers” in India have the right to choose an operator who will provide them with an affordable, high-quality services.

“In our experience, over 113 markets as of today, users always choose satellite broadband when they lack other options for reasons of coverage or reliability or affordability. We believe all of these users have an equal right to cross the digital divide. So a false distinction between their lack of connectivity versus traditional use cases is fundamentally against any goals of universal access, which is really the point of services like Starlink,” he said.

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