Feeling isolated? Satellite communication comes calling

livemint.com:

Mint explains: Terrestrial networks use on-ground telecom infrastructure to enable connectivity. However, on-ground network cannot cover every area. But a satellite network can, by beaming connectivity down to ground stations where ground networks aren’t present.

Jio Satellite Communications and Eutelsat OneWeb, as well as Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper, seek to offer these services. This requires them to get satellite spectrum, which led to the auction vs allocation debate between satellite firms and telcos. The new law settled the debate by constitutionalizing administrative allocation.

Terrestrial network spectrum, which runs our mobile phone networks, has a much wider usage and network density on ground. They cater to billions of users, leading to the spectrum being fully utilized. Satellites use narrow beams to transmit signals through specific spectrum bands, and are used by fewer users in mostly remote situations.

Stakeholders have argued that due to fewer use cases, satellite spectrum will never be fully utilized, which makes spectrum-sharing ideal. Bidding out the spectrum would have given companies that own the spectrum power to control who can access it, creating an arbitrage. Auction ensures that any telco that outbids the other gets exclusive ownership of the spectrum.

Here, competitive bidding can drive players out. In administrative allocation, Centre lets operators have access to the spectrum for a fee. The spectrum is shared among all offering satellite-based services, and no private entity dictates terms of spectrum usage.