'No auction': India amid Elon Musk, Mukesh Ambani tussle over satellite spectrum

India has rejected service providers' demand to auction the satellite communications (satcom) spectrum. However, the central government made it clear that radiowaves will come with a cost even if assigned without auction for satellite-based communications services.

This comes hours after Bharti Airtel founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal joined Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio in demanding the allocation of spectrum for satcom services in the same manner as it is allocated to telecom players. Moreover, Tesla CEO and the world's richest person, Elon Musk, criticised the auction approach and described rival Ambani's approach as "unprecedented."

"The Telecom Act 2023 which was passed in December of last year has very clearly put this in Schedule 1 which means that satcom spectrum will be allocated administratively. That does not mean that spectrum comes without a cost. “ What that cost is and what the formula of that cost is going to be will not be decided by you and me but it will be decided by Trai," Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at India Mobile Congress. He was responding to a question on telecom operators' demand to allocate spectrum to satcom players through the auction route.

"We have a regulatory authority for telecom and that regulatory authority has been empowered by the constitution to determine what that administrative pricing is going to be? I am very confident that they will come up with the best pricing that should be adopted provided that it is being given in an administrative manner," Scindia said.

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On September 27, 2024, Trai floated a consultation process to explore methodology and price for assigning spectrum to satellite companies to provide calling, messaging, broadband and other services in the country. Reliance Jio last week sought Scindia's intervention to get regulator Trai issue a revised consultation paper on a proposed spectrum allocation rule to ensure a level-playing field between terrestrial and satellite players.

Reliance Jio, in the letter dated October 10, mentioned that satellite communication companies such Elon Musk's Starlink, Amazon's Kupier, Bharti Group-backed OneWeb Eutelsat, and SES-Jio joint venture have expressed interest to provide their services in India, which will directly compete with land based mobile networks, and therefore a fair and transparent auction system for satellite services is essential to ensure level competition.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)