Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance has asked the telecom regulator to review the potential access of Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper before granting it satellite spectrum, a letter showed on Friday.
Reliance’s letter, which is not public, is Mr Ambani’s last-ditch effort in his ongoing confrontation with Mr Musk over how India should give away spectrum for satellite services. While Reliance has called for an auction, India sided with Mr Musk who – in line with global trends – wanted an administrative allocation.
In the letter reviewed by Reuters, Reliance said it moves about 15 billion gigabytes of data in India every month after spending about $23 billion on spectrum auctions over the past few years, but Starlink has the potential capacity of about 18 billion gigabytes. Will target only those customers. of data through its satellites possibly with very little outlay.
Experts say the auction means higher initial investment, which may deter foreign players from favoring Reliance.
“The authority should seriously examine the capabilities created by these mega… constellations like Starlink and Kuiper,” the letter dated November 15 said.
A senior government source at the telecom regulator said that before the end of the year, all the responses received would be reviewed before making final recommendations. Starlink, Amazon and Reliance did not respond.
Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia this week said Starlink is seeking security clearance for a license to offer satellite broadband services in India and will get the permit if it meets all the conditions.
Mr Ambani once offered free data on his mobile plans, and Mr Musk has adopted a similar aggressive strategy. In Kenya, Mr Musk set the price of Starlink at $10 a month, compared with $120 in the US, which upset local telecom companies.
Mr Ambani, Asia’s richest man, has more than 479 million Indian telecom users, making Reliance Jio the No. 1 player. Mr Musk’s Starlink, a unit of SpaceX, has 6,400 active satellites orbiting the Earth, providing low-latency broadband to four million customers.
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