India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) has allowed a further week for stakeholder comments and counter arguments as to its plans to price spectrum for would-be broadband satellite operators.

The new deadlines are set as October 25th for comments and November 1st for counter-comments, following requests from stakeholders for more time. TRAI’s initial deadlines were October 18th and October 25th.

TRAI’s proposal is that spectrum could be charged either per Megahertz, or as a percentage of the operator’s gross revenue, or via a new pricing model.

There are four would-be operators: Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel (in conjunction with Eutelsat’s OneWeb), Ambani’s Reliance Jio (in conjunction with Luxembourg’s SES), Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Kuiper.

India’s Business Standard newspaper summed up the position, saying: “Major satellite players like Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon Kuiper are advocating for lower spectrum prices in India. Bezos-led Amazon has cautioned that high spectrum costs would compel global satellite providers to focus on urban areas, potentially neglecting remote regions, a move that would place them in direct competition with telcos like Jio and Airtel.”

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Categories: Articles, Regulation, Spectrum

Tags: india, Project Kuiper, starlink, TRAI