Satellite and emerging communications

Prelims and Mains

Only one part of a satellite internet service is in space. The rest is a dish at the user's end and a ground facility that puts the traffic onto the ordinary internet, and it is that ground half a government can actually reach.

• A user's dish sends a radio signal to a passing low Earth orbit satellite, which relays it to a satellite earth station gateway that hands it to the ordinary internet.
• No cable has to be laid to the user, which is why the service reaches homes that terrain or distance puts beyond a ground network.

Prelims and Mains

Selling a satellite service in India takes two permissions rather than one, and the three operators that want to sell it hold both. What none of them has is clearance to switch the service on.

• Selling satellite voice and data in India needs a GMPCS licence from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and an authorisation from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe).
• Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite Communications all hold both, and none has been cleared to begin service.
• The worry holding them is that a foreign operator could route Indian traffic through gateways outside India, leaving the government no hold over the service.

Prelims and Mains

Spectrum is the one input a satellite operator in India cannot bid for. The Telecommunications Act, 2023 settled that, which is why a satellite licence is a set of conditions rather than a price.

• India auctions the spectrum for terrestrial mobile networks, where an operator buys an exclusive block of frequencies in a service area.
• The Act instead lists satellite based services among the uses for which spectrum is assigned administratively, on terms the government sets.