Airtel, Jio and Starlink preparing commercial launches for GMPCS services

Telecom sector rivals Airtel and Jio, and American tycoon Elon Musk will now square off in the emerging satellite broadband segment in India. The three are preparing commercial launches following the government’s decision to allocate spectrum administratively and putting it in the new telecom bill.

Bharti Group-backed OneWeb, Reliance’s Jio Satellite Communications and Musk’s Starlink would be the key companies in the space, having received global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) licences.

Reliance’s Jio Satellite Communications’ global joint venture (JV) partner SES is preparing to send more satellites into orbit, executives said. Jio entered into a JV with SES to access the latest medium-earth orbit satellite technology, which can offer gigabit, fibre-like services from space.

“We’re fully ready. Our earth station in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, is operational. JioSpaceFiber is being piloted across four locations and services will be launched as soon as the government allocates the spectrum,” a senior executive said on condition of anonymity. LiveMint