Musk's Starlink sees its capacity underused without rural India onboard
According to Parnil Urdhwareshe, director at Starlink Satellite Communications, the actual number of users Starlink can serve in metro Mumbai would be one-tenth of the number of users it can serve in the rural areas of a district.
NEW DELHI : Elon Musk-owned Starlink on Wednesday said a large part of its capacity will remain underutilized in India if the country's rural users are not brought onto its soon-to-be launched satellite internet services. Rural users are fundamental to how its network operates, it said.
“A very large percentage of Starlink users (worldwide) are residential users who live in rural areas, and a very large number of those users are people for whom Starlink was the first option they had for a truly great broadband," Parnil Urdhwareshe, director at Starlink Satellite Communications, said at the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi.
According to Urdhwareshe, the actual number of users Starlink can serve in metro Mumbai would be one-tenth of the number of users it can serve in the rural areas of a district.
Comments from Starlink assume significance as telecom operators have expressed concerns before the government that satellite internet services will compete with them and eat into their market share by tapping the elite users in urban areas.
“We are now in over 150 markets and in every single one of those markets, the goal has always been to complement existing services and be able to make sure that similar quality of internet is available whether in urban regions or in rural regions," Urdhwareshe said.
Rollout plans
Starlink is putting in place the required infrastructure to start its satellite internet services in the country. The company will compete with the likes of Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite, who have also got the government clearance to start satellite internet services.
The only hurdle now is the allocation of spectrum to these companies, on which the department of telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) are working.
In July, Starlink received authorization from the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorization Centre, or IN-SPACe, for its Gen 1 constellation capacity over India, showed the space regulator's website. This was a month after the company was granted Starlink the critical Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) licence, marking a major milestone in its entry into the Indian market, after a three-year wait.
A GMPCS licence allows companies to offer voice and data services through satellite. The licence is issued for 20 years and allows companies to offer satellite communication services in licensed service areas.
The pricing of Starlink’s broadband services in India has not yet been disclosed. Globally, the company has over 8,400 satellites in orbit currently.
In July, minister of state for communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani had said Starlink can have only 20 lakh customers in India and offer up to 200 Mbps speed. That won't affect telecom services. The minister has also said the upfront cost for the satcom service will be too high, and the monthly cost will likely be around ₹3,000.
In March, SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, tied up with Bharti Airtel and Jio Platforms, India’s largest telecom operators, to potentially distribute Starlink equipment through their retail stores and offer services to business customers, schools, and health centres.
“Forty percent of India’s population does not have internet access, with rural areas comprising the majority of these cases. This represents a large market opportunity for Starlink," brokerage Bernstein had said in its report on 4 March.
Clarity on spectrum pricing
As recommended by Trai and under consideration by DoT, satcom companies will have to pay annual spectrum charges of either 4% of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) or ₹3,500 per MHz, whichever is higher. Additionally, Trai also recommended an additional annual charge of ₹500 per subscriber for such service providers in urban areas.
Satcom operators will also have to pay an annual authorization fee of 8% of adjusted gross revenue to the government, according to the current authorization terms of the DoT.
On 16 September, Mint reported that DoT does not agree with the sector regulator’s proposed charges for satellite internet providers like Starlink, OneWeb, and Jio Satellite. The DoT wants the regulator to review the additional annual charge of ₹500 per subscriber on satellite service providers for serving high-paying users in urban areas, said one of the people cited. The concerns stem from the difficulty in differentiating between subscribers located in urban and rural areas, which could become a grey area and make it hard to monitor or prevent potential violations.
The department is yet to give its formal reference to Trai on the issues.
On Wednesday, the Broadband India Forum (BIF), which represents the satellite communication service providers, said the pricing for the satellite spectrum needs to be reviewed by Trai and should be kept lower.
“Spectrum prices need to be kept at a bare minimum level for the rural areas, and it should be lower than what has been recommended by Trai," said Debashish Bhattacharya, senior deputy director general at Broadband India Forum at a session at the India Mobile Congress.
The industry has also asked the government to expedite the allocation of satellite spectrum in the country so that commercial services can be started.
“We strongly recommend that allocation of spectrum should happen at the earliest. We understand that this (satellite internet services launch) is happening in India for the first time, but the delay is leading to an opportunity cost for the players," said Anil Kumar Bhatt, director general of Indian Space Association (IspA) also at the India Mobile Congress. IspA represents satellite communication service providers as its members.
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