Satellite internet: Opportunities and challenges in Starlink's India outing

Despite the promise of wide coverage, there is the issue of pricing. Airtel and Jio could help there

Soon, Indians will enjoy satellite internet services extending broadband internet coverage across many underserved regions. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have agreements with Belgium’s SES and the French Eutelsat OneWeb, respectively, to launch satellite internet services.

 

Both Jio and Airtel also have agreements with Starlink, which is the largest global provider of satellite internet. Vodafone Idea, too, is in talks with Starlink. So, Starlink, which is the satellite arm of SpaceX, may soon be in India in partnerships with three private operators.

 

Some 670 million Indians live in the Himalayan belt, the Ghats, the Northeast, on islands, and in heavily forested places where laying fibre and putting up towers is hard. Satellite internet would allow them to use net-based services that folks in more accessible places take for granted.

 

The concept of using satellites for communication was discussed in detail long before the first satellite was launched in 1957.  In 1945, Arthur C Clarke wrote a key paper where he calculated that just three well-placed satellites could provide radio coverage across the whole world.

 

The idea is simple. Radio waves travel in straight lines, like light. The Earth is spherical. A radio signal from the Earth’s surface isn’t picked up beyond the planet’s curvature. But that signal can be picked up and relayed by a satellite orbiting above the Earth to yet another satellite, which is beyond the Earth’s curvature but in “line of sight” of the first satellite. If you put up a constellation of satellites, coverage is worldwide. This is how TV works in the 21st century.

 

TV relays the same data to millions at the same time. An internet network relays different data to millions, using the similar bandwidths. TV channels broadcast the same signal across thousands of square km. Internet services use “spot beams” to send narrow-focus signals to a few hundred square km. Terrestrial stations inside the spot can relay those signals. Spot beams can use the same frequency to carry different data to many different spots.

 

There are other technical details, which lead to variations in quality and throughput. The lower a satellite’s orbit, the less time the signal takes to “bounce” and round-trip. That means low latency. The higher the orbit, the larger the “spot”. Note that the satellite may move with respect to the Earth and the user may also move (like a ship or car). Every time a user moves out of a “spot”, the service provider must handover to another satellite covering the new “spot”. 

 

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites orbit at 600-1,000 km up for LEO, and 5,000-20,000 km for MEO. Geostationary satellites (these synchronise orbits to stay above a fixed point with respect to the Earth’s surface) orbit at around 38,000 km. LEO and MEO offer low-latency services, but geostationary satellites cover much larger spots and can transfer more data with higher latency.

 

Starlink uses LEO constellations of 7,000 satellites to provide broadband connectivity. It has close to 5 million retail subscribers around the world. It also provides military data to the Ukraine government and commercial data to many companies.

 

Starlink runs at speeds of up to 220 mbps with low latency. Jio and Airtel may use Starlink to strengthen “back-haul” for their respective terrestrial networks. Jio says it will offer Starlink equipment (a dish and terminal to receive and transmit signals) to retail consumers along with installation support. Airtel is looking at a similar model. Additional hardware is needed in moving vehicles. YouTube videos and user feedback on forums indicates it’s easy to install the equipment and get the service up and running.

 

Another technical issue is that most 4G/5G smartphones don’t work with Starlink satellite services, though some do. So this could be an issue if subscribers cannot seamlessly use the same handset to access terrestrial and satellite services.

 

Starlink subscribers pay upfront for equipment, and monthly fees. Pricing is a key variable in a price–sensitive market. The kits cost upwards of $350, and satellite broadband plans cost $150 a month in the US. But Starlink offers discounted plans at $10 equivalent a month in Kenya. In Bhutan, it charges between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4500 a month. There is also a 30 per cent tax on foreign digital services in India, which could push up prices unless Starlink finds a way to avoid this.

 

Airtel and Jio, with their marketing data and local knowledge, can help structure pricing to find a sweet spot. They may need to find ways to bundle compatible smartphones as well to encourage uptake. For many users, and especially micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), this would be a huge step forward in terms of ease of doing business.