Allocate or auction spectrum? Let India’s telecom policy goals settle

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia clarified on Tuesday that airwave spectrum for telecom services via satellite would be awarded by means of administrative allocation. This is what Elon Musk, whose Starlink plans to beam the internet to dishes in India from low-earth orbit, has been asking for.

An auction, which is what Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio wants held, is not on the agenda. This sets the record straight on the Centre’s position on a matter that has split opinion within the industry. Along with Amazon’s Kuiper, OneWeb-Eutelsat, a satcom player backed by Airtel’s owner, Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Group, also plans to enter this new market.

Terrestrial service leader Jio has not ruled out taking the issue to court as a “last resort," as reported. Jio’s argument is that since satcom will compete with existing services, for which spectrum was bought at exorbitant auction prices, what sky-beamers use must also be bid for, so that incumbents are not put at a disadvantage. Musk, though, has opposed Jio’s proposal, saying that auctions would be “unprecedented," given that such spectrum must be allocated under rules of the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, to which India is a party.

But which approach would serve us better? As Scindia has said, India’s Telecom Act of 2023 mandates the distribution of satellite spectrum through allocation. For terrestrial services, however, the Supreme Court had ordered auctions to be conducted, after which telecom operators had to pay huge sums for it. What satcom debutants are seeking is also a scarce resource, so why the same telecom rules shouldn’t apply is a good question.