From Musk to Mittal, Ambani to Amazon: Why such a big race for satcom?
satcom, a new way to access the internet as opposed to the traditional telecom networks.
The differences over how companies get spectrum has divided the industry. Many want the government to allocate spectrum while others want it to auction it.
Competition for satellite spectrum is fierce than for terrestrial spectrum, as there are only three private telecom players in the country, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea or Vi, but the number is much higher for satcom for which foreign companies such as Elon Musk's Starlink and Amazon too are in the fray.
Bharti has collaboration with British company Eutelsat OneWeb while Jio has a tie-up with Luxembourg-based SES. Tata group entity Nelco has announced a partnership with Canada's Telesat for satcom business.
What is satcom?
Satcom, as the name suggests, uses satellites for communication, especially internet connectivity, as against traditional terrestrial networks which are based on cables and towers. In satcom or satellite broadband, internet service providers send an internet signal to a satellite in space, which then comes back to the users and is captured by their satellite dish. The dish is connected to the user’s modem, which finally connects their computer to the internet signal.
This process then reverses back to the internet service provider and is repeated every time.
Earlier, most satellite internet came with larger equipment, including a dish, but nowadays most internet providers have smaller, more compact equipment. Most satellite internet now only comes with a modem, wireless router and network cable. Earlier, geostationary (GEO) satellites were used for satcom, but now low-Earth orbit (LEO) as well as medium-Earth orbit (MEO) satellites are
