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Elon Musk appears to have won a contest with Indian telecom tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal over the way satellite spectrum should be awarded, as the billionaires battle over the introduction of space-fed internet to the world’s most populous country.
Ambani, Asia’s richest man and chair of oil-to-digital services conglomerate Reliance Industries, along with Mittal’s Bharti Airtel, have been trying to persuade India’s government to auction satellite spectrum, in line with the usual competitive method in the mobile market they dominate, rather than just allocate it.
Musk, chief executive of SpaceX and owner of the Starlink satellite broadband service, took to his social media site X this week to say that any such moves by India would be “unprecedented, as this spectrum was long designated by the [International Telecommunication Union] as shared spectrum for satellites”. India is a member of the ITU.
Soon after, Mittal voiced his support for the auction process. Addressing a conference in New Delhi, he specifically told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sat in the audience, that satellite companies serving urban areas “need to pay telecom licences like everyone else”.
Ambani’s Reliance had written to the telecoms regulator and the government last week, accusing it of pre-emptively concluding that allocation was the way forward, according to a letter seen by the Financial Times and a person familiar with the matter.
But on Tuesday, Indian communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said there were no plans afoot to auction space spectrum. “Much appreciated!” Musk posted on X in response. “We will do our best to serve the people of India with Starlink.”
This year, the Financial Times reported that Mittal and Ambani were frontrunners to introduce satellite internet services ahead of Musk’s Starlink, which has yet to receive licences. The Indian businessmen enjoy a near duopoly in telecoms domestically and EY-Parthenon estimates that space broadband is a potential $1bn annual revenue market for the country.
“We have deep pockets and we can spend money to buy extra spectrum . . . this will keep small players away,” said a person close to Reliance. “If it is not auction, and allocation, because it’s a new technology, a lot of unwanted players might enter.”
India’s parliament late last year enacted a law that allowed allocation of satellite-based spectrum, instead of the country’s traditional auction method. Last month, the telecoms regulator requested feedback from industry players, with a deadline set for later in October.
Bharti Airtel, which plans to launch satellite internet in a joint venture with Anglo-French group Eutelsat OneWeb, said in a statement that operators serving urban areas and retail customers should go through the auction process.
A person close to the company said only services reaching currently unserved communities should be assigned spectrum, to allow for a “level playing field” after Indian operators invested “billions of dollars” in terrestrial connections.
“The local guys are arguing there should be uniformity in the rules,” said Vivekanand Subbaraman, technology analyst at Ambit Capital in Mumbai. “Principally, they want these companies to be subject to the same licensing norms, the same spectrum norms.”
However, another industry expert described the tussle as an “ego battle”.
“It’s more about ensuring that the telecom industry remains in control of the local players rather than foreigners coming in and dictating their agenda,” they said. “I can’t think of any other explanation, it’s not like there’s a scarcity of spectrum, it’s abundant.”
A simple assignment of spectrum may hand Musk’s company, the largest and most successful of its kind, a “first-mover advantage”, while an auction process would allow Indian players time to get their products market-ready, said the person close to Reliance.
Musk told Modi last year that he wanted to bring Starlink, which operates more than 6,000 low-orbit satellites, to India to connect remote communities.
Musk also has his eye on the long-term potential of India as a location for a Tesla plant, despite cancelling a trip to New Delhi earlier this year to prioritise talks with and focus on its Asian rival China.
Reliance, along with India’s space and telecoms regulators, did not respond to requests for comment.
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