OneWeb India, the local subsidiary of low-earth orbit operator Eutelsat OneWeb, has received the necessary approvals from the country’s space regulator to launch its commercial satellite broadband services in India.
The company said it’s the first organisation to receive authorisation from the Indian space agency to launch satellite broadband services, ahead of its rival Starlink which is yet to obtain a global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) licence.
Cyril Dujardin, Co-General Manager of Connectivity at Eutelsat Group, said the company is pleased to have received these approvals to provide high-speed connectivity to even the most remote locations.
OneWeb, backed by Bharti Group, earlier this month said it has received in-principle approvals from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to operate two gateway earth stations in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, which would secure the provision of vital high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity to customers across India, once services are rolled out.
The company plans to use the full ‘Ka’ spectrum band (27.5-29.1 GHz and 29.5-30 GHz) to operate its two centres and the ‘Ku’ band (14 GHz) for its satellite user access terminals (UATs) in India.
In a submission to the telecom regulator, OneWeb has said its GEN-1 satellite design requires access to the entire ‘Ku’and ‘Ka’ bands for operations and the full Q/V bands (37.5-52.4 GHz), once the GEN-2 (satellite systems) come into service in about five years.
It further stated that any partial access to these airwaves could hinder connectivity and network performance.
OneWeb said it can launch services soon after it receives the final spectrum allocation by the government.
However, the allocation methods for satellite spectrum in India remain unclear, inordinately delaying the launch of these services.
While the international standards recommend administrative assignment, the government is deliberating on allocating airwaves through auction. The issue has been ongoing since OneWeb, Telesat and SpaceX initially started exploring opportunities to offer satellite communication services in India.
