Satellite broadband: RIL's entry could mark start of another telecom battle

Reliance could also build a constellation from scratch as Google is doing but that would be time-consuming. Plus, the competition has already put up large numbers of satellites in space

The satellite broadband business is heating up. A few weeks ago, Reliance Industries ended months of speculation when Jio Satellite Communications, a Reliance Jio subsidiary, applied to the Department of Telecom (DoT) for a global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMCS) licence.

The move will see Reliance locking horns with its chief rivals in the telecom sweepstakes — Sunil Mittal-backed OneWeb, which was the first to apply for the same licence and is awaiting a go-ahead. For the uninitiated, like the Unified Access Service Licence (UASL), which allows telcos to offer access for a range of terrestrial telecom services, GMCS offers