Tech billionaire Elon Musk thanked Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia for disagreeing with Indian tycoons Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal over spectrum auction for satellite services, saying he looked forward to serving Indians. Responding to Scindia’s statement that satellite spectrum would not be auctioned, Musk said in a post on X: “We are very excited! We will do our best to serve the people of India with Starlink.”

Elon Musk and Indian tycoons Ambani and Mittal are at loggerheads over satellite spectrum and the nuances of its allocation.

Jio recently requested a revision of a consultation paper recommending standards for “terms and conditions for the allocation of spectrum for certain satellite-based commercial communications services”.
“We have received a reference from the Telecommunications Department and in response to the reference we received from the Ministry of Defense, we have initiated a consultation process dealing with issues referred to Trai by the Ministry of Defense… the consultation process is ongoing.” “We will all Consider inputs and views received during the consultation process and we will make our considered recommendations,” Trai Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti told reporters on the sidelines of the IMC on Tuesday.

Asked about Reliance Jio’s demand to revise the Trai consultation paper to ensure a level playing field between terrestrial and satellite players, the Trai chairman said: “Different stakeholders have different requirements for the consultation process and we are taking all these viewpoints and inputs into account. ” and take a considered opinion.

The world’s richest man, Musk, has clashed with Indian billionaires Ambani and Mittal over the allocation of spectrum for wireless communications via satellites, calling their demand for auctioning such airwaves “unprecedented.”

While Ambani’s Reliance Jio has been vocal about the need to allocate such spectrum through auction to provide a level playing field to legacy operators that buy airwaves and build infrastructure like telecom towers, Mittal on Tuesday expressed the need for that Satellite companies will have to face any headwinds in the city’s ambitions to buy spectrum, as telecommunications companies do.

Musk-led Starlink is calling for administrative allocation of licenses in line with global trends to tap the world’s fastest-growing mobile and internet market. This found some support from Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who said on Tuesday that such airwaves would be allocated through administrative allocation and not auctioned.

Scindia said the Telecommunications Act, 2023, passed in December, has placed the matter in “Schedule 1”, which means spectrum will be allocated administratively for satcomm.

“That doesn’t mean the spectrum isn’t free. What these costs will be and what the formula of these costs will be will not be decided by you or me… but by Trai… and there is a paper that has already been circulated by Trai and we have a telecom regulator and this regulator for telecommunications has been empowered by the Constitution to decide what these administrative prices will be,” he had said.

The minister had said he was very confident that Trai would come up with the best pricing plan that should be adopted, provided that it is decided through administrative channels.

“Satellite spectrum around the world is allocated administratively. So India does nothing different than the rest of the world. Conversely, if you decide to auction it, you would be doing something different from the rest of the world,” the minister said.

Pointing out that satellite spectrum is shared airwaves, Scindia said: “If the spectrum is shared, how can you price it individually?”

Musk first described Jio’s demand last week to shun sector regulator Trai’s consultation paper on allocation and non-auction of satellite broadband as “unprecedented” and then questioned whether it would be “too much hassle” to allow Starlink to provide internet services in India allow.