DoT secretary to meet with satellite companies and telephone companies for local manufacture of satellite communication equipment

Telecommunications Bureau (DoT) Secretary Anshu Prakash will meet with stakeholders from various sectors next week, including phone companies, tech startups, IoT players and global satellite companies backed by Bharti. OneWeb, Hughes Communications and Inmarsat will discuss a comprehensive roadmap for local manufacturing of satellite communication equipment such as gateways and IoT devices, customer premises equipment (CPE), antenna systems , sensors and other related infrastructure.

Meeting ahead of future new Spacecom meetings The policy will create an effective regulatory system for global operators of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations to establish a national gateway in India, especially as the dependence on the India vis-à-vis foreign satellite operators will not go away anytime soon. I will also explain how to do it. Isro only covers about 50% of the country’s needs.

“The Spacecom Internet of Things (DoS) distributed policy draft highlights the growing involvement of India’s commercial industry in the provision of space communications, with an interactive session chaired by the Secretary of Communications in July. Scheduled with the industry on the 12th, it will develop the satcom infrastructure ecosystem, which will also be able to use unique components in satellite gateways to facilitate the manufacture of local CPE equipment, IoT devices, antennas and of sensors. The DoT satellite cell was mentioned in an internal invitation to industry stakeholders. ET confirmed a copy of the invitation.

In DoT’s invitation to the virtual meeting, “new technologies such as high-speed satellites and LEO satellites (constellations) will be introduced”, and in the interactive session, “the regulatory framework required to install satellite gateways in India”. He also discussed and added that it would support operations. From an international satellite operator.

Senior representative of Reliance Jio,

, Sankhya Labs, Skylo Technologies, Bharat Electronics and Center for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) will attend the conference.Official Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Niti Aayog, DoS, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), IIT Chennai will also be present.

But from Elon Musk Starlink Founded by Jeff Bezos, Amazon, like OneWeb, has set up a constellation of LEO satellites to provide broadband satellite broadband services to the world, including India, but invited to a conference virtual chaired by Prakash. Not.

However, senior DoT officials revealed that the department “had not banned Starlink and Amazon from attending the next virtual conference.” “Their names do not appear on the guest list because, according to our records, we do not have a DoT license holder or branch in India,” the DoT said in a written response to ET’s question. ..

OneWeb and Musk’s Starlink are preparing to launch satellite broadband services in India next year. Amazon, which is also building the constellation of LEO satellites as part of the Kuiper Global Space Internet Drive project, has yet to unveil its plans for India.

At the conference, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Mittal will launch high-speed satellite internet services in India, with OneWeb, the group’s satellite division, negotiating with Sasken Technologies, Isro’s business division, NewSpace India and some Israeli tech companies. It was held shortly after previously mentioning that it would significantly reduce the price of user access terminals. ..

OneWeb will also build two home satellite gateways or “ground stations” ready between February and March 2022, he said.