New Delhi: Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal Tuesday joined forces with rival Reliance Jio in advocating for satellite companies—including international ones like Elon Musk’s Starlink—to go through the spectrum auction process rather than be allocated spectrum on an administrative basis by the government. This coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for building a global framework for the digital sector, similar to that seen in the aviation sector.
“The time has come for global institutions to accept its importance for global governance,” Modi said. He also stressed on the need for clear “dos and don’ts” for technology in today’s interconnected world.
Both Modi and Mittal were speaking at the inauguration of the International Telecommunication Union-World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA) 2024, and that of the eighth edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC).
Bharti Enterprises Chairman, Mittal pitched for satellite communication firms buying spectrum and paying licence fee just as telecom companies do.
He said that telecom companies around the globe have done “seminal work” in connecting the world, and can also take satellite services into the remotest parts of the nations through the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), as well as directly through their own initiatives. The USOF, in which all telecom operators contribute a percentage of their adjusted gross revenues (AGR), is used to support expansion of telecom services in rural and remote parts of the country.
“And those satellite companies that have ambitions to come into urban areas serving elite retail customers, just need to take the telecom licences like everybody else and be bound by the same conditions,” he said. “They need to buy the spectrum as telecom companies do. They need to pay the licence fees as the telecom companies do, and also secure their networks like telecom companies do.”
Mittal’s statement gains significance following a recent letter by Reliance Jio to Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, in which it opposed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendations that spectrum for providing satellite broadband services be allocated administratively rather than being auctioned. In contrast, global satellite communication players like Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, favour administrative allocation.
Meanwhile, in his speech, Modi said, “There is a need for dos and don’ts for technology at the global level. All the digital tools and applications that are available today are beyond any limits. They are beyond the boundaries of any country.”
Therefore, he added, no country alone can protect its citizens from cyber threats, meaning they would have to work together.
“Global institutions will have to come forward and take responsibility,” he said. “Just like we have made a global rules and regulations framework for the aviation sector, the digital world also needs a similar framework.”
In this interconnected world, security cannot be a second thought, the PM added.
Speaking at the same event, Akash Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, said that AI is “absolutely critical” for realising the dream of Viksit Bharat by 2047, while stating that India should urgently embrace AI with a holistic strategy driven by maximum ‘atmanirbhar’ efforts.
He further requested that the government should expedite the updating of the 2020 draft of the Data Centre Policy.
“Indian data should remain in Indian Data Centres. Therefore, Indian companies ready to set up AI and machine learning data centers should get all necessary incentives, including incentives for power consumption,” he said.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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