Auction to enable Indian telcos compete with foreign cos

STARLINK, KUIPER CAPACITY LARGER THAN LOCAL PLAYERS

NEW DELHI: Spectrum auction will enable local entities to compete with foreign satellite players who can potentially block entry of Indian companies into Satcom space in future, Reliance Jio said in a letter to telecom regulator Trai on Friday.

While opposing the proposal to allocate spectrum to Satcom players without auction, Jio said that Elon Musk-owned Starlink and Amazon's Kuiper combined Satcom bandwidth is more than the capacity built by all three leading Indian telecom operators over the years.

"Assignment through the auction will provide an opportunity for Indian entities to directly compete with foreign entities, who have blocked First come First Served based ITU (International Telecommunication Union) priority list, and plan their own constellation. In the absence of clarity and certainty of spectrum assignment/priority, no Indian entity will ever be able to launch its own NGSO (non-geostationary orbit) constellation," Jio said.