BUSINESS
Satellite communication service providers such as OneWeb India, SpaceX-owned Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper Systems, have urged the government to allow them to use their gateways in India to service other nations also. The three firms have already applied for licences and regulatory approval to provide satellite Internet services in the country. Their request basically means that the operational infrastructure they put up in India once their proposal is approved, should also be allowed to service their global operations. It remains to be seen whether the government accepts their demand or not because in this case data of Indian users will be sent out of the country. Usually in such cases, for security reasons the government insists that consumer data should be stored within the country itself. If the government accepts their demand, the licence for global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) will need to be amended, sources said. The satellite Internet firms have argued that sharing gateways and other infrastructure would save cost, otherwise they would have to put up similar set ups in each country they have operations. Further, network resilience would be better in case of network faults, and services would become more affordable due to reduced costs. Industry executives said that the demand is logical as satellite networks are international and multiple countries can be simultaneously served by the same transponders. Transponders are devices used for communication between the antenna on the satellite and the base station on the ground. “For the ground infrastructure, huge areas can be served by a single satellite gateway. There is no need to set up a separate gateway in each country,” OneWeb India said in a recent note to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Currently, Trai is framing the contours for the telecom authorisation regime and exploring ways to reducing and simplifying the number of authorisations in the sector. The same is being done to improve ease of doing business. As per the new Telecom Act, the authorisation regime will replace the current licensing system. Simultaneously, the telecom regulator is also working on a consultation paper on satellite spectrum allotment through administrative mode. “Starlink India’s unified licence application has been undergoing comprehensive review via several rounds of inter-ministerial deliberation,” Starlink said, adding that the progress on its applications so far needs to be safeguarded in parallel to the development of the new authorisation regime. Officials said that the company’s application is awaiting clearance from the inter-ministerial group which is evaluating the same on security parameters, which include mandatory data storage and usage in the country and lawful interception provisions in the satellite systems of the company. Similarly, the government has also sought clarifications from Amazon ’s Kuiper, which is part of the due diligence process before issuing the letter of intent or licence. “Regulations should facilitate using infrastructure based in India to be utilised for serving neighbouring countries. As an example, this could be done by permitting gateways in India to be utilised for providing services in neighboring countries on a case-to-case basis,” Kuiper said in its submission. Currently, companies such as OneWeb and Jio are ready to provide satellite Internet services commercially, but are awaiting spectrum allocation to do the same. The companies have also urged the government to provide the spectrum in the interim so that they can start the services commercially. Satellite services are different from telcom services as the former are focussed on Internet broadband services largely in low-lying areas where it’s difficult to provide telecom services. Follow us on Twitter , Instagram , LinkedIn, Facebook None
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