India's refusal to auctioning of home space spectrum for satellite internet may prove to be a shot in the arm to Starlink-owner Elon Musk, who has been lobbying for a slice of the sky above the world' most populous country.
The central government on Tuesday said it will allot and not auction the spectrum for satellite broadband, hours after Musk decried the auction route being sought by rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani as "unprecedented" and against the global norms.
A scramble is already apace for the Indian space broadband market, set to grow 36 per cent a year to reach $1.9 billion by 2030.
According to Ambani's Reliance, an auction will ensure a level playing field, while Musk bats for a more globally aligned allocation route for the space spectrum.
Union Telecoms Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia at an event in Delhi on Tuesday said spectrum will be allocated administratively in line with Indian laws, and its pricing worked out by the telecom watchdog TRAI.
"If you do decide to auction it, then you will be doing something which is different from the rest of the world," he said.
Musk appreciated the minister's comment and said on X: "We will do our best to serve the people of India with Starlink."
Earlier, when he came to know that Reliance had challenged Starlink's bid for the spectrum, Musk cited a pact under a UN body which terms space xxas a shared territory.
He wrote, "unprecedented, as this spectrum was long designated by the (International Telecommunication Union) as shared spectrum for satellites."
India is a member of the ITU and signatory to its treaty that regulates satellite spectrum and advocates that allocation must be done "rationally, efficiently and economically" as it is a "limited natural resource".
Sunil Mittal, founder of Bharti Airtel which has partnered with Eutelsat for the spectrum bid, also called for the auction route on Tuesday.
"Satellite companies who have ambitions to come into urban areas, serving elite retail customers, just need to take the telecom licenses like everybody else... they need to buy the spectrum as telecom companies buy," Mittal said at the India Mobile Congress underway in Delhi.
A Reliance insider told Financial Times: "We have deep pockets and we can spend money to buy extra spectrum . . . this will keep small players away."
Image Courtesy: NASA
Comments