Clash of titans: TRAI open house sees Jio, Airtel spar with Starlink, Amazon over satcom spectrum norms

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel clashed with satellite players that are eyeing India’s lucrative satcom market at TRAI’s open house discussion on Friday, as telecom operators made a spirited pitch for level-playing-field among the “competing” “substitutable services” and satcom companies argued that justification for administrative assignment of radiowaves is “techno-economic”.

The high-voltage discussions went on for over six hours under the watchful eye of the regulator and saw active participation of all key stakeholders – from Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea to satellite biggies like Starlink and Amazon (Project Kuiper is Amazon’s low Earth orbit satellite broadband network).