Satellite Communication

 It is not aimed to replace fiber, wireline, and traditional mobile services
 Let no telco stop or delay connecting the unconnected or unreachable
 Trai should prepare to notify IUC and ensure availability of adequate PoIs

A battle between the two billionaires – Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Jio and Elon Musk of Starlink – is brewing up. Jio wants the spectrum allocation through auction route, while Starlink is favouring administrative allocation route. Of late, Sunil Bharti Mittal of OneWeb, in which Bharti Enterprises is the largest shareholder (21.2 pc), also took a u-turn and started following Jio’s line for allocation through auction. But, the third operator, Vodafone Idea, which is not in the race for Satellite based communication services, is silent on the issue. But this time the government has decided to go for allocation through administrative route and it has asked Trai to give recommendations.