Satellite Internet’s Long Wait

India’s three satellite internet licensees remain stuck in security assessments, with spectrum allocation, tariffs and launch dates still out of reach.

Last week, the Ministry of Communications said three companies hold licences for satellite communication services in India and all three are still in security assessment. A licensee seeks spectrum only after its assessment ends. The ministry put all three at broadly the same regulatory stage.

The statement, issued through the Press Information Bureau, answered a social media post that alleged unequal treatment. The ministry called its framework "fair and non-discriminatory." It named neither the post nor the three licensees.

Starlink holds a licence of the kind the ministry described. In a Lok Sabha reply on 3 December 2025, Minister of State Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said the Department of Telecommunications granted Starlink Satellite Communications Private Limited a Unified Licence on 6 June 2025. The licence covers satellite mobile, commercial VSAT and internet service provider authorisations. The company first agreed to comply with security conditions. That licence is now 16 months old, and the October 8 statement gives no timetable for the next step.

A licence comes first, a security assessment second, a spectrum assignment third and a tariff last. Each step depends on the one before it. The Lok Sabha reply shows Starlink completed the first step, and nothing public shows it has completed the second. A household has no basis to plan around a launch date.

The same reply sets a consumer condition. A licensee must provide authorised services to any applicant at any place in its service area, without discrimination. The reply says satellite services provide connectivity in rural, underserved and unserved areas, including remote and mountainous regions that fibre and microwave links do not reach. It gives no start date.

A second rule affects how households use the service. A Department of Telecommunications memorandum of 5 May 2025 binds a fixed satellite terminal to the location where service was granted. A household that wants to move its dish must ask the licensee, and the move proceeds only with authorisation.

Spectrum Stalemate

Under Section 4(3) of the Telecommunications Act 2023, the Central Government prescribes the price, fees and duration of spectrum assignment. Section 4(4) and the First Schedule place satellite services such as GMPCS and VSAT under administrative assignment, which means no auction. TRAI sent its recommendations on terms and prices to the Department on May 9, 2025. They set a validity of up to five years, extendable by up to two.

In November last year, the Department sent some of those recommendations back for reconsideration. TRAI replied in December 2025. The press note does not say which recommendations came back or what TRAI answered. It names no rates. Whatever rate the government notifies feeds into the tariff a household pays. The 8 October statement shows the licensees have not yet reached the stage of seeking spectrum, almost 17 months after TRAI’s first recommendations.

One public benchmark exists. In July 2024 the Department told TRAI it charges commercial VSAT licensees a spectrum usage charge of 3 to 4 percent of adjusted gross revenue. TRAI had recommended cutting that to 1 percent in August 2021. The Department said the cut was not implemented.

Submissions that TRAI summarises show the disagreement. One side argued that mobile operators paid for spectrum at auction, so satellite operators should face comparable charges. The other side argued that satellite spectrum is shared among operators and that an auction would limit competition. TRAI concluded that the case for a level playing field is not expected to arise in the near to medium term.

TRAI estimates that a typical terrestrial fixed wireless operator has network capacity of 168 terabits per second. It puts the major low earth orbit providers at 0.6 to 3 terabits per second for India. That is a ratio of 56 to 1 up to 280 to 1. TRAI concludes that satellite broadband is likely to remain complementary to fixed wireless in the near to medium term. It also says satellite terminals cost more than terrestrial fixed wireless terminals and are likely to stay costlier. It gives no rupee figure.

TRAI’s yearly indicators for 2025-26 show the same scale gap. At 31 March 2026 India had 16.61 million fixed wireless subscribers and 2,01,239 VSATs. Fixed wireless carries about 83 times as many connections.

TRAI released those indicators on October 5. Internet subscriptions stood at 76.59 per 100 people nationally, 126.80 in urban India and 48.31 in rural India. Rural India holds 440.87 million of the 1,092.79 million subscriptions. Telephone connections per 100 people were 151.47 in urban areas and 60.46 in rural areas.

Mobile data sets the price benchmark. Wireless data users averaged 25.51 GB a month in 2025-26, up from 21.53 GB. Operators earned Rs 8.02 per GB, down 10.59 percent from Rs 8.97. Wireless data revenue was Rs 2,39,874 crore. Multiplying the two figures gives about Rs 205 a month in data revenue per average user. Any satellite tariff plus the cost of a terminal will be compared with that.

No tariff or launch date appears in any of the documents above. A household should pay no deposit to any reseller until a licensee holds spectrum and publishes its tariff. The test of success is the full cost of a working connection including the terminal, the number of unserved villages with service and how fast faults are fixed. TRAI publishes quarterly indicators, and satellite subscribers need their own line in them.

The Ministry should publish the date by which each assessment ends. The October 8 statement gives none, and a framework described as fair is easier to judge when it comes with dates. Until it does, the claim of equal treatment among all three licensees rests on the ministry's word alone.

(The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)