Satcom India rollout: Elon Musk’s Starlink launch soon? ‘There are two issues…’ - What Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said

Satcom India rollout: Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia today said that satellite communication (satcom) services will be rolled out in India as soon as major players, including Elon Musk-owned Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb, and Jio SGS, meet the requirements of national security agencies.In an interview to PTI, the Union Minister said the government will soon be in a position to allocate spectrum to satcom players once the Department of Telecom (DoT) finalises spectrum pricing."There are two issues that need to be addressed. One by the licence holders OneWeb, Reliance Jio, and Starlink, which is to comply with security clearances regarding international gateways, ensuring data remains in India, and so on," Scindia said as quoted by PTI.He further stated that the government has already allocated provisional spectrum to satcom companies to demonstrate compliance capability with security agencies."They are in the process of doing that, so they need to comply," Scindia said.The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) are currently working to finalise spectrum pricing.However, the process has seen friction with Trai recently rejecting several DoT proposals, including a 5 per cent annual spectrum fee instead of 4 per cent, and scrapping a Rs 500 fee per connection in urban areas."Hopefully that should be resolved soon," Scindia said.DoT is expected to give its presentation before the apex decision-making body in the telecom sector, the Digital Communication Commission (DCC). The final decision now rests with DCC, which may eventually seek Cabinet approvalTalking about relief sought by Vodafone Idea (VIL), the minister said the DoT is still working on it."We are today applying our minds on that. It is work in progress within the Department of Telecommunications," Scindia said.In a letter to the DoT earlier this year, Vi said its liabilities to the government are to the tune of around Rs 2 lakh crore, which includes Rs 1.19 lakh crore towards spectrum dues.The company said that in case of no support, the Centre will face significant direct monetary loss with no recovery of spectrum dues, equity value of Rs 53,083 crore becoming nil, and no recovery of AGR dues.The Supreme Court has given the government an option to resolve the issue within the ambit of its policy-making powers.When asked about the sustainability of repeated relief to VIL, the minister said no relief has been given to the company so far."We have not given any relief as such. We have converted our dues into equity. Therefore, we hold a 49 per cent equity stake in Vodafone against dues of close to, if I recall correctly, Rs 37,000 crore. That is now the Government of India's equity stake in that company," Scindia said.In the absence of any relief, VIL needs to pay around Rs 18,000 crore by March 2026, and a similar amount every year for the next six years. The annual liabilities on VIL are more than double its annual operational cash generation, which has been in the range of Rs 8,400-9,200 crore for the last three years.VIL has said the market will slip into a duopoly and there will be a significant hike in telecom service prices if its operations come under threat.Despite concerns that India might slip into a duopoly, Scindia expressed confidence in the market's robustness. He noted that India is one of the few global economies to boast four major providers - Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL."If you look at countries across the world, very few can boast of four providers of telecom services. India today has four very robust telcos," the minister said.He added that even players such as Vodafone Idea and BSNL currently serve close to about 210 million and 100 million customers, respectively."Very few telcos in the world can boast of that. You have an economy with four players, very robust pricing, and high economies of scale in the market. We would like to see that continue," Scindia said.