Jyotiraditya Scindia says 'no to spectrum auction pitch from Ambani, Mittal | Why is it a win for Elon Musk?

India’s top telecom players, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, had advocated for an auction to level the playing field with legacy operators. Scindia emphasized that the government-set pricing will ensure a transparent, fair allocation under the 2023 Telecom Act.

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday asserted the spectrum for satellite broadband will be allocated and not auctioned. His statement comes days after Indian billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Mittal demanded an auction process for spectrum for satellite broadband.

The minister clarified that the satellite broadband spectrum will however be not given free and sector regulator Trai will fix a price for the resource.

Not a single country auctions spectrum for satellite: Scindia

He elaborated, "Every country has to follow the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is the organisation that lays out the policy for spectrum in space or satellites, and the ITU has been very clear in terms of the spectrum being given out on an assignment basis. In addition, if you look across the world today, I cannot think of a single country that auctions spectrum for satellite."

India is a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency for digital technology.

A win for Elon Musk's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper

Billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink and global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper support an administrative allocation.

Musk's Starlink has applied for a licence in India

Starlink has applied for a licence to start operations in the country. Scindia, however, offered no clues on the fate of his application.

Musk-led Starlink is demanding administrative allotment of licences in line with the global trend as it looks to tap into the world's fastest-growing mobile telephony and internet market.

Such an allocation will be at a government-decided price, and allow foreign firms like Starlink to offer voice and data services. If the spectrum were to be auctioned, it would have made it costlier for Starlink to roll out services. 

Mukesh Ambani's Jio and Mittal's Bharti Airtel differ on govt's stand

Ambani's Reliance Jio asserted the need to allocate such spectrum through an auction to provide a level playing field to legacy operators who buy airwaves and set up infrastructure like telecom towers. Another top telecom player, Mittal, last month at an industry event where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present pushed d the need to use bidding for such allocation.

Jio and Mittal's Bharti Airtel - India's largest and second-largest operators, respectively - feel that giving away the satellite broadband airwaves at a pre-decided price by the government will create an uneven playing field since they had to compete in an auction to get spectrum for their terrestrial wireless phone networks.

The two are vying for a piece of the satellite broadband segment as well. Scindia said the Telecom Act of 2023 passed in December has put the matter in 'Schedule 1', which means that the Satcom spectrum will be allocated administratively.

(With PTI inputs)

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