Elon Musk's Starlink & Amazon's Project Kuiper's bids for landing rights under evaluation, says space regulator

The applications of Elon Musk-owned SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper under evaluation for the grant of landing rights, said India’s space regulator.

The Starlink and Project Kuiper are satellite internet providing companies who are planning to make forays into India. They need separate approvals from the telecommunications and space regulators to start their services in the country.

The landing rights refer to the regulatory approval to beam signals from a satellite —internet in this case— into any country on the Earth.

“Starlink and Amazon Kuiper’s applications seeking IN-SPACe authorisation for provisioning of their constellation capacity (in India) are under process. The authorisation is an independent approval and does not hinge on Starlink and Amazon-Kuiper getting prior GMPCS licences and other approvals from the DoT,” said IN-SPACe Chairperson Pawan Goenka to The Economic Times.

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The IN-SPACe stands for the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). It is the space regulator in the country.

The GMPCS that Goenka referred to is the ‘global mobile personal communications by satellite services’ licence. The applicants has to seek it separately from the telecommunications regulator.

Even though Starlink is a world leader in satellite internet services, it does not have the first-mover advantage in India. So far, only Airtel-owner Bharti Group and Reliance’s Jio have the requisite approvals to start satellite internet services in the country.

What all approvals do Starlink & Project Kuiper need?

The Starlink, Project Kuiper, and any other applicant needs a slew of separate approvals from various wings of the government.

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To start with, they need landing rights from the space regulator IN-SPACe.

Then, as stated earlier, they need GMPCS licence.

Then, they would need spectrum from the government for providing internet services.

The ET noted in the report that the Union government is yet to publish the rules for the allocation of such spectrums for satellite internet services.

Moreover, the companies would also need approval from the central government to set up earth stations in the country, according to the newspaper.

In India, the report said up to 75 per cent of rural areas lack broadband connectivity and that’s an area where satellite internet service providers can make a difference. Abroad, the satellite internet services have proved to be highly useful in remote localities where providing wired broadband or telecommunication services or installing mobile towers is difficult.