Project Kuiper seeks India licence
July 16, 2024
Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband-by-satellite system is said to expect to receive a licence to operate over India shortly. India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is currently evaluating the application documents submitted by the Amazon-owned company. Kuiper, once licensed, will join Eutelsat’s OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s satellite partner SES, as well as Elon Musk’s Starlink, in bidding for Indian business.
India’s Economic Times is reporting that even if the DoT is satisfied with the Kuiper application, the company will then have to be examined by various other agencies and an inter-ministerial committee as well as India’s powerful Home Ministry before winning approval to proceed.
It is worth noting that Starlink, which has been active in India since 2021, has yet to be given approval to operate. At one stage it had a reported 5000 users actually using its equipment on an informal – ie non-approved – basis in India. It was ordered to switch these users off by the Indian authorities.
Eutelsat’s OneWeb and the Reliance Industries owned Jio have managed to make more progress. Apart from this, there’s also the matter of spectrum. The India government has not yet finalised how the spectrum will be offered to the satcom companies despite the high-level connections in place for Eutelsat (and its Bharti shareholding) and Reliance.
Eutelsat OneWeb is not seeking a direct relationship with consumers but will target B2B partners. It received its permission to operate over India in November last year from IN-SPACe and is on record as being confident of the commencement of its LEO network services in 2023 for customers in India, and has announced distribution agreements with Hughes to provide services to enterprise and government with Eutelsat OneWeb capacity, especially in areas outside the reach of fibre connectivity.
It is still waiting! Indeed, OneWeb’s satellites have an in-orbit lifespan of between five and seven years. OneWeb’s satellites have been in orbit since 2022. They are not likely to be in use over India much before – at best – the end of 2024 or early 2025.
Starlink has plenty of satellites in orbit and could activate itd8 direct-to-consumer services speedily.
But Kuiper has yet to launch anything other than a pair of test satellites. An India satcom licence will go a long way in enabling Amazon to legally offer satellite Internet service within the nation, but those permissions are unlikely to happen quite as soon as the reports suggest.
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- AST SpaceMobile examines emergency call obligations
- AST SpaceMobile promises US commercial services
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