India needs satellite internet especially in its rural areas, its telecom minister said, a positive regulatory sign for Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink Inc. which has aspirations to operate in the world\u2019s most-populous nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many remote corners of the country where you cannot take fiber or mobile connectivity. How do you do 100% saturation if you don\u2019t have satellite internet?\u201d Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in an interview in New Delhi Tuesday. He added that satellite connectivity will be \u201cthe only way that you can activate things\u201d if natural disasters destroy towers and fiber networks.<\/p>\n
Emphasizing the complementary \u2014 and not competitive \u2014 role played by these services, Scindia said India was committed to offer consumers terrestrial, fiber as well as satellite communications. <\/p>\n
The minister\u2019s remarks underscore the solid backing for these services from the Narendra Modi-led government. It also bolsters global firms vying for an Indian entry, including Starlink, Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper and OneWeb Ltd.<\/p>\n
While Starlink is yet to secure a regulatory license to start operations in India and is awaiting local rules on spectrum pricing, many things are beginning to align for the US firm. <\/p>\n
Last week, it announced alliances with two Indian wireless operators \u2014- Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. and Sunil Mittal\u2019s Bharti Airtel Ltd. \u2014 winning over those who had earlier opposed Starlink being granted cheap airwaves.<\/p>\n
\u2018Open for Anyone\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cIndia\u2019s market is open for anyone and everyone who wants to come and participate in this large market and provide a service,\u201d Scindia said. \u201cUltimately it\u2019s the consumer that has to decide who they will go with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scindia declined to comment on when Starlink may get the license or what price satellite internet firms will be asked to pay for airwaves.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s telecom regulator is making rules on the latter and how the spectrum is priced will influence the cost of satellite broadband for users in India.<\/p>\n
India is the world\u2019s second-largest internet market, trailing China. Phone data charges are as low as $0.11 per gigabyte, among the lowest in the world, and any entrant will be fighting for users in a price-sensitive market.<\/p>\n
Security Conditions <\/p>\n
Scindia said the firms will decide the pricing of their satellite internet services. <\/p>\n
Global firms, including SpaceX\u2019s Starlink, will also need to satisfy India\u2019s internal and external security conditions before securing a license. Rival OneWeb as well as Reliance Jio\u2019s JioSpaceFiber has already got the local licenses to start operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually it\u2019ll be an economies of scale argument that\u2019ll come through,\u201d Scindia said. \u201cAt this point of time, let the market be penetrated first.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India needs satellite internet especially in its rural areas, its telecom minister said, a positive regulatory sign for Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink Inc. which has aspirations to operate in the world\u2019s most-populous nation. \u201cThere are many remote corners of the country where you cannot take fiber or mobile connectivity. How do you do 100% saturation if you don\u2019t have satellite internet?\u201d Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in an interview in New Delhi Tuesday. He added that satellite connectivity will be \u201cthe only way that you can activate things\u201d if natural disasters destroy towers and fiber networks. Emphasizing the complementary \u2014 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}