In case of India auctioning the 5G spectrum in 2022, winning the bid itself meant reaching the destination point. Pay the money, collect your radiowaves, and roll on. However, when it comes to satellite communications companies, the new draft regulations by India indicate how differently the game is played.
The Department of Telecom announced the draft of Telecommunications (Spectrum Assignment by Administrative Process) Rules, 2026 on 17th June, and the primary highlight of this announcement is that the satcom companies are not supposed to win the spectrum via any auction processes whatsoever. Instead, they receive their spectrum allocation through an administrative process, where they are required to pay an annual fixed fee of Rs 30,000 to Rs 50 lakh per terminal depending on the service type and a non-refundable application fee of Rs 1,000.
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According to the draft guidelines, the satcom company will have to be cleared by security first to even get a letter of intent from the DoT. The letter of intent precedes the licence. The licence then precedes spectrum allocation. Even after these, there still needs to be separate permission from the government for the company to be able to connect its satellite network to any telecommunications infrastructure, which includes mobile phones, landline telephones, and the internet.
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That is to say, spectrum allocation is not the end. It is somewhere along the way.
According to the draft guidelines, the satcom company cannot connect its networks to any public switched telephone network, public land mobile network, satellite telephone services, and the internet without government permission. That is a serious limitation for companies with a business model reliant on the use of broadband internet.
Three companies which are currently in the line of fire are Elon Musk’s Starlink, Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, and Jio Satcom. These companies have also been working on launches of satellites for commercial broadband internet in India. However, while the latest regulations will not affect these companies, it imposes an extra regulatory layer on them, which was not needed before.
According to former TRAI Principal Advisor Satya N Gupta, the additional approval is definitely connected with the issues of security of satellites’ service since satellite communication by nature crosses boundaries and is difficult to intercept compared to terrestrial one.
The regulation also affects BSNL as the spectrum acquisition process through administration makes less money for them up front but then the company will have to pay market prices and renew its applications at the expiration of its assignments. Thus, the financial discipline should be improved. Currently, the draft is under discussion in DoT for 30 days.
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