Govt, Trai dismiss telecom companies revenue fears on satcom
New Delhi: The government and the telecom regulator have brushed aside fears of
telecom operators
that
satellite communication
players such as
Starlink
and
Amazon Kuiper
can eat into their revenue, saying the two services are different and satellite services will be offered at a much smaller scale.
As per an analysis, Starlink can have a million customers by 2028-29, as against 75 million wireline broadband users and 1.2 billion 4G and 5G users, said officials. Satcom tariffs are set to be around eight times higher than those for
terrestrial telecom services
while the one-time hardware cost will be 13 times higher.
While Starlink is yet to announce tariffs and hardware costs for the Indian market, based on an analysis of tariffs in other countries, officials estimate that the one-time cost of hardware could be ₹20,500-21,000 and the monthly plan could be priced at ₹2,720-2,800. In comparison, telcos offer fixed wired broadband plans in the range of ₹500-1,000, with state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam offering a plan for as low as ₹329 with 1,000 GB of data.
Telecom operators, in a recent joint letter through the Cellular Operators Association of India to various government authorities, had slammed the recommendations of the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
(Trai) on
satcom spectrum pricing
, calling them unjustifiably low. Telcos had cautioned the government that if Trai's recommendations were implemented in their current form, they would create a non-level playing field and impact the sustainability of terrestrial telecom services. But the government and the regulator rejected the contention.
"Starlink may have around 1035 PB of data capacity over India in a year, which is nothing when compared to capacities of terrestrial operators," said an official, who did not wish to be identified.
Live Events
The capacity generation potential of Starlink has been derived from what the Elon Musk-owned company has told the Indian authorities.
Starlink has applied to IN-SPACe for authorisation of 600 Gbps over India. Taking 75% for downlink purposes, 450 Gbps has been considered for the calculation of download capacity.
The numbers arrived at in the comparative analysis are only generic and not made part of any official document by the government and the regulator, according to officials. "The exercise was undertaken to get an idea around satcom and its potential," said a second official.
Trai, too, has not taken into account the demand by telcos of a level playing field with satcom players, as the regulator felt that the two services are different. It has presented a comparative analysis of the two services, as per which satcom is nowhere close to the capacities of telcos, said officials.
Based on its analysis, Trai said that as per conservative estimates, the network capacity of the typical terrestrial wireless access service operator for providing
broadband access
to households and enterprises through
fixed wireless access
technology would be of the order of 168 terabits per second (Tbps) in the near- to-medium-term.
On the other hand, the network capacities of major
non-geostationary orbit
(NGSO)-based fixed satellite service (FSS) providers (such as Starlink and OneWeb) for providing satellite broadband in India would range between 0.6 Tbps and 3 Tbps in the near-to-medium term.
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