Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Source: Business Insider

Elon Musk-led satellite company Starlink announced on Sunday that the company will focus on 10 rural Lok Sabha constituencies for 80 percent of the Starlink terminals shipped to India.

India head for Starlink Satellite communications service, Sanjay Bhargava delivered the announcement and also added that he is keen on having virtual meetings with various ministers and secretaries in order to discuss how absolute broadband connectivity can help the public.

“In October, I am also keen to have 30-minute virtual conversations with MPs, ministers, secretaries to GOI (government of India), or principal secretaries to States to see if they think 100 per cent broadband would help improve lives. We will probably focus on 10 rural Lok Sabha constituencies for 80 per cent of the Starlink terminals shipped to India,” Bhargava said in a social media post.

Starlink is currently trying to pre-engage customers even though it has not obtained any licenses for providing broadband services in the country. The company had recently addressed this issue in a pre-order note, stating its service is available in many countries and it will be easier for it to get government approvals if it has a high number of pre-orders from India.

“The government approval process is complex. So far there is no application pending with the government, so the ball is in our court to apply for consideration which we are working on. Our approach will be to get pilot approval quickly if pan India approval will take long.”

“We are optimistic that we will get approval for a pilot programme or Pan India approval in the next few months,” the note had said.

Delhi-based NGO Telecom Watchdog wrote to the Department of Telecommunications on September 29, detailing how Starlink is asking customers to deposit ₹7,350 per person to a Ponzi scheme, so that they can be served on a first-come first-serve basis.

The company is charging a deposit of USD 99 or Rs 7,350 per customer and promises to deliver data speeds in the range of 50 to 150 megabits per second in the beta stage.

Starlink began with pre-orders in March for customers to enter the priority queue, and had already clocked over 5,000 pre-orders by October 1. Bhargava had announced that Starlink aims to commence operations with over 2 lakh active terminals from December, subject to permission from the government. However, he expressed uncertainty over the target number of terminals if the company does not get permission from the government to start satellite-based service in India.

The money being invested in Starlink by people in this pre-order phase is going to be utilised in the licensing and regulation processes, the company said.

In an earlier post, Bhargava had said, “The number of pre-orders from rural constituencies will be one factor that helps us select focus constituencies. Most of this will be provided by terrestrial broadband, but the hard-to-serve areas will be handled by Satcom providers like Starlink. We look forward to the day a rural constituency in India can declare itself to be 100 per cent broadband.”

Starlink will compete with other service providers in India like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea in broadband, along with directly competing with Bharti group backed-OneWeb. Bharti-backed OneWeb, a satellite communications company, has plans to offer its services in India from May 2022.

Disputes have been arising between Telecom and satellite operators over the issue of spectrum allocation for mobile services, especially for frequency bands that will facilitate 5G services.

How satellite-based broadband services are rolled out in the country depends majorly on the framework adopted by the government for the allocation of radio waves. The Department of Telecom had asked telecom regulator TRAI for its opinions.

Radio waves are usually allocated to telecom operators through auction, however satellite competitors do not want to government to go for auctions, fearing that if done so, a level playing field may not be generated.

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