Eutelsat OneWeb awaits final approvals, says India infrastructure is ready

The company said its regulatory work is progressing and satellite services will complement terrestrial networks, with use cases in remote areas, aviation, maritime and disaster resilience

French satellite communications services provider Eutelsat OneWeb is ready to launch operations in India, with infrastructure already in place, and is awaiting government approval of security clearances, said Neha Idnani, regional vice-president, Asia Pacific, Eutelsat OneWeb.

 

Asked about the timeline for the launch of satellite communication (SatCom) services in India, Idnani said spectrum allocation and security clearance processes were moving smoothly.

 

She added that the company’s infrastructure was fully ready for launch.

 

“I’m confident all of the regulatory and licensing work that we’ve been working with the Government of India is through, we are fully ready from an infrastructure standpoint to go live,” she said.

 

 

“Today, we believe satellites should be an extension to terrestrial networks and not a replacement of terrestrial networks. The strong terrestrial backbone that you have in countries like India cannot and should not be replaced by satellites,” Idnani said.

 

Although Eutelsat OneWeb primarily operates on a business-to-business (B2B) model, the company will focus on consumers as the ultimate beneficiaries of the technology, she said.

 

“The last-mile beneficiaries would still be the villages, the unconnected parts of the country through an extension of the terrestrial infrastructure,” she added.

 

Idnani said satellite communication would be particularly useful where terrestrial connectivity was technically or commercially unviable.

 

This includes airplanes, maritime operations and remote hinterlands where fibre networks cannot be deployed commercially, she said.

 

SatCom could also provide complementary connectivity during disasters and serve as backup infrastructure to improve network resilience.

 

Addressing concerns over the pace at which Elon Musk-owned Starlink is launching satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO), Idnani said India and the wider Asia-Pacific region, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of the global population, should not be concerned as the region remains a front-runner in innovation and technology.

 

On tariff structures for direct-to-device services, the Eutelsat OneWeb executive said “direct-to-device is going to be an add-on fringe use case”, with tariffs depending on geography, customer segments and individual markets.

 

“However, it’s not something that we have as a part of our current constellation. In the future, we are also in the evaluation phase,” she said when asked about the status of direct-to-device services at the company.

 

On the use of satellite communication technology in defence and security, Idnani said Eutelsat OneWeb had localised its data in India and built its physical infrastructure in the country.

 

She added that the company had SMAs and a highly secure, encrypted infrastructure layer necessary for defence use cases.

 

The company’s communications networks are “actively deployed whether it’s in Ukraine, whether it’s in Korea, Taiwan”, she said.