No communication received by DoT yet from three companies

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has until date obtained “no communication” concerning satellite tv for pc broadband from Amazon, Bharti group backed-OneWeb or Elon Musk’s SpaceX, it has stated in response to a Right to Information (RTI) question.

The DoT’s response got here on queries looking for to know whether or not it had, since 2018, obtained any communication or proposal for organising of satellite tv for pc broadband in India from Amazon, OneWeb, SpaceX or any of their subsidiaries.

DoT officers additionally confirmed the event and stated that up to now none of those corporations had come to them with a “concrete proposal” on beginning satellite tv for pc broadband within the nation, though there had been some preliminary casual discussions between the varied departments of the telecom ministry.

The DoT response within the RTI is in distinction with the plans for satellite tv for pc broadband introduced by the three corporations. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, Musk’s SpaceX and Bharti group-backed OneWeb have over the past yr introduced elaborate plans to launch satellite tv for pc broadband in India by mid-2022.

SpaceX founder Musk had earlier this yr, in a tweet, stated that the Starlink web service, being supplied by his firm, would quickly full its set-up and begin providing industrial web providers to customers as early as 2022, whereas OneWeb additionally plans to launch high-speed web providers within the nation by mid-2022.

The Bharti group-backed firm plans to have a constellation of 648 low-earth-orbit satellites as a part of its international plan to ship excessive pace web providers with low latency. “OneWeb has secured global priority spectrum rights and now successfully completed four launches and aims to offer high-speed internet from OneWeb satellites in India by mid-2022,” it had stated in a press release this yr.

On the opposite hand, sources at Amazon India stated the corporate would quickly begin assembly DoT officers to debate the modalities and search essential approvals corresponding to satellite tv for pc bandwidth leasing, touchdown rights amongst others.
Earlier this yr in March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had floated a dialogue paper looking for stakeholder views on methods to make satellite tv for pc communication extra inexpensive for extraordinary customers.

In its 55-page session paper, Trai had sought to know whether or not it ought to enable ego-stationary, medium and low-earth-orbit satellites offering satellite-based low-bit-rate connectivity or only one would suffice.

“The cost of satellite-based services is on the higher side in the country due to which it has not been widely adopted by end users. What measures can be taken to make the satellite-based services affordable in India?,” Trai had sought to know in its paper.

In response to the session paper, OneWeb had stated that the federal government ought to assess the extent of license authorisation charges, spectrum cost, and customized taxes and “define the level of levies to a pure cost recovery basis”.

“It should also be noted that regarding spectrum fees, satellite operators would really benefit from a special spectrum fees formula for gateways operating several antennas using the same spectrum. As such operation requires huge bandwidth, but the spectrum is only assigned for a particular location only and the spectrum denial is not bigger using several antennas versus a single antenna,” it had responded.

On the opposite hand, Bharti Airtel had submitted that present regulatory fees ought to be rationalised and unified into one single levy, and authorities ought to recuperate solely the price of administering licensing actions.

“In order to promote use of satellite technologies, custom duties and levies on satellite based devices, user terminals and equipment necessary for set up of gateway earth stations should be reduced,” Bharti Airtel had stated. ReportWire