OneWeb executive chairman Sunil Mittal, also chairman of the Bharti Group, also expects India’s much awaited spacecom policy to be notified soon, and reiterated that spectrum for satcom should not be auctioned but allotted administratively, which is the global norm.
The spacecom policy notification would pave the way for OneWeb’s UK-based holding company to bring in foreign direct investment (FDI) and take a stake into the Indian satellite company, OneWeb India Communications.
OneWeb India Communications is currently 100% owned by Bharti Airtel—Bharti Group’s telecom venture—and holds a GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) licence given by the telecom department, which is required to roll out satellite internet services in India.
OneWeb’s UK holding company has already put in an FDI application to the Indian government, Mittal said.
OneWeb, which is also owned by the UK government, Eutelsat, SoftBank, Hughes Networks and Hanwha Systems, is trying to steal a March over the likes of Elon Musk-owned satellite company Starlink, Reliance Jio, Nelco, a Tata group satcom company, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, who are eyeing the emerging satellite broadband opportunity in the country. EY estimates India’s space economy to grow to about $13 billion by 2025. The annual satellite broadband revenue opportunity is now around $1 billion, according to industry estimates.
Mittal said that OneWeb will be able to match mobile services rates of western countries but its tariffs can’t be at par with the “extremely low” prices in India. He added the satcom services will be affordable and at par with that of mobile rates only if a community of 30-40 homes in a village use it.However, the services will cost more for individual use in India compared to existing mobile services plans.
Mittal said India is also ideally positioned to become a global manufacturing hub for user access terminals (UATs)—a key piece of satellite gear needed to deliver high-speed satellite broadband services to end-users—especially as Chinese terminals are unlikely to be accepted in most parts of the world.
“This presents a huge opportunity for India, and I am in talks with our space authorities and New Space India Ltd (NSIL)—the commercial arm of Isro—to identify local companies that can locally manufacture such UATs for OneWeb and other global satellite companies,” said Mittal.
He was speaking to reporters shortly after OneWeb launched another batch of 36 satellites from Isro’s space centre in Sriharikota. This was OneWeb’s 18th launch, taking its low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite count to 618, which completes its constellation and positions it to start global satellite broadband coverage later this year.
OneWeb’s constellation design needs 588 satellites for global coverage and the additional satellites are planned for resilience and redundancy.
Mittal, though, is counting on India’s telecoms regulator to back administered allocation of satellite spectrum—instead of auctioning it—to make the satellite broadband business viable and the services affordable for Indians living in the country’s remotest corners. This, since satellite spectrum is a shared resource and required only in a few areas.
“Globally, there is no spectrum auction for satellite (services)… it’s a shared resource and nobody can get it dedicated… Trai must come with a policy that fully capitalises on the (satellite) projects (being implemented) for the benefit of India’s remotest parts and (delivery of) emergency services,” said Mittal.
He added that since India is part of the International Telecom Union (ITU) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi too had recently launched its in-country office, it’s unlikely that the country would deviate from global practices on the mode of satellite spectrum allocation.
Trai’s consultation paper on satellite spectrum bands and their allocation mode is due shortly, which is expected to clear the air on spectrum authorisation for satellite companies keen to roll out broadband from space services in India.
Besides OneWeb, Reliance Jio has also received the GMPCS licence, while Starlink and Nelco have applied for the permit.
Mittal said OneWeb, which is armed with GMPCS and NLD (national long distance) permits, is rapidly building its satellite ground stations in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. Contracts for these landing stations have gone to Indus Towers (in which Bharti Airtel is the largest stakeholder) and Nxtra Data Ltd, a Bharti Airtel arm.
Going forward, Mittal expects OneWeb to generate around $1 billion of revenue once it activates around 80% of its global satellite capacity. The company, he said, has already inked around $800-900 million of ‘take or pay’ contracts with customers.
Mittal, though, reiterated that OneWeb and rival, Starlink would have very different business models. While the Elon Musk-owned satellite player would directly sell services to retail users, OneWeb would operate on a B2B model, offering its fast broadband-from-space services to enterprises, defence, aviation, maritime players and governments.
“I can promise that OneWeb will offer dedicated bandwidth to its customers unlike Starlink, which can offer bandwidth on a best-effort basis as in a mobile network.”
Mittal said OneWeb is close to concluding its global merger with France’s Eutelsat. The merger, he said, would help the company secure another $3-4 billion of funding to build the next generation of LEO satellites.
