Airtel refutes reports on changing stand on spectrum allocation for SATCOM companies

New Delhi [India], October 15 : Airtel has denied reports that the telecom major has changed its stand on spectrum allocations for potential satellite communication companies including international ones like Elon Musk's Starlink. A controversy was triggered when Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman Bharti Enterprises in his address at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2024,that was innagurated today, stated that SATCOM companies should purchase spectrum like other telecom operators.
During his inaugural speech at the IMC, Mittal said "Those satellite companies who have ambitions to come into urban areas, serving elite retail customers just need to take the telecom licenses like everybody else be bound with the same conditions. They need to buy the spectrum as the telecom companies buy. They need to pay the license fee as the telecom companies do and also secure networks as telecom companies do".
Responding to a query by ANI, Mittal said that a statement issued by Airtel said that six months ago the telecom company had written to the Department of Telecom and there is no question of Airtel changing its stand.
The March 2024 letter to the DoT supported administrative allocation of spectrum for SATCOM companies only under specific conditions like connecting the unconnected/rural/remote areas or maritime and aviation as also in situations of disaster management.
"Apropos, the recently released Telecommunications Act, 2023 has rightly included SATCOM in its ambit while assigning spectrum for SATCOM on an administrative basis. We continue to strongly support this approach," Airtel informed the DoT.
The letter further adds "SATCOM will act as a complementary service to terrestrial communication services in bridging digital inclusion gap and/or servicing the specific use cases of non-retail customers such as defence, cellular backhaul or in rural and remote areas."
"Accordingly, assignment of satellite spectrum on administrative basis can be done for such use cases. The only exception may be created for unhindered use by any government agency and for disaster management in any part of the country."
The Akash Ambani-led Reliance Jio has also pitched for satellite companies to pay license fee and buy spectrum for their telecom services just like legacy telecom companies do. Telecom regulator TRAI has recommended that satellite broadband to potential SATCOM companies be allocated through administrative measures and not auctioned.
Elon Musk's Starlink and global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper wants an administrative allocation of spectrum for satellite services.