India starts allocating spectrum for sat-coms
October 14, 2024
By Chris Forrester
Eutelsat’s OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s satellite division have moved a step closer to starting their satellite services thanks to India’s Department of Telecommunications having issued provisional licences to the two businesses.
The licences have been issued because OneWeb and Jio have already been granted authorisation to operate by India’s In-Space. However, there are strings attached. The services now available are for test purposes and run for six months only and cannot be monetised. The two companies can test their technology and prove to the regulator, government, and the consumers how good the satellite technology is for communications.
OneWeb is not looking for a direct-to-consumer service and instead is seeking commercial users and its own fleet of low Earth orbiting satellites as well as Eutelsat’s geostationary craft.
Reliance Jio Platforms, working with partner SES, wants to use their spectrum as a multi-orbit space networks that is a combination of geostationary (GEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellations capable of delivering multi-gigabit links and capacity to enterprises, mobile backhaul and retail customers across the length and breadth of India and neighbouring regions.
The Jio/SES joint venture will leverage SES-12, SES’s high-throughput GEO satellite serving India, and O3b mPOWER, SES’s next-generation MEO constellation, to extend and complement Jio’s terrestrial network, increasing access to digital services and applications. Jio will offer managed services and gateway infrastructure operations services to the joint venture.