DoT to take decision on satellite earth station gateways next week

In November 2022, Trai had recommended a separate pan-India licence for assembling satellite earth station gateways

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to take a decision next week on the recommendations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for setting up satellite earth station gateways (SESG), The Economic Times (ET) reported on Friday. A satellite gateway, also referred to as a teleport or hub, is a ground station that transmits data to/from the satellite to the local area network.

 The inter-ministerial panel, Digital Communications Commission (DCC), is likely to meet next week and take a call on the matter, officials were quoted as saying. In November 2022, Trai had recommended a separate pan-India licence for assembling SESGs, which should be outside the domain of a unified licence. The service area for the license shall be at a national level.

The regulator proposed that only the firms registered under the Companies Act shall be eligible to apply for the grant of their licence. A token license fee of Re. 1 per annum should be levied on SESG license holders as they won’t be offering any kind of telecom or broadcasting services to consumers directly.

In September 2021, the DoT asked Trai to recommend a licensing framework for the operation of satellite earth station gateways. The current regime requires that a licensee must establish its gateway to provide any type of satellite-based communication services. However, with the advancement of satellite technologies and the operationalisation of new generation satellites like low-earth orbit and medium-earth orbit (LEO/MEO), the current regime will no longer be suitable.

“The current licensing conditions may pose a limitation to establish its own gateway for rendering satellite services, thereby resulting in higher capex and opex,” DoT had told Trai. Therefore, the DoT felt the need to explore the possibility of a licensing framework that would allow for the establishment of gateways as independent facilities, which could be set up by either a satellite constellation operator or any other entity.

Bharti Group-backed OneWeb, Reliance Jio's joint venture with Luxembourg-based SES, Amazon's Project Kuiper, Elon Musk-owned Starlink, Viasat, and the Tata-Telesat consortium are among the companies that are preparing to enter India's emerging market for high-speed broadband services from space.