Call drops and frequent crackers due to weak mobile signals can be a thing of the past with players who Elon Musk-supported Starlink on the verge of launching satellite broadband services in India.
Currently, high-end phones that iPhones offer satcom communication in the form of emergency messages. According to experts, mainstream smartphones will soon catch up with satellite communications (satcom) in the coming years, while prices may become even cheaper or comparable to traditional services.
TV Ramachandran, President of Broadband India Forum (BIF) arguedthat satcom availability via handset is simply a matter of demand.
“Manufacturers will not let the demand (for satcom services) go to waste. They will have to reduce prices. Today you can get a good 4G phone for around ₹ 4,000 and now 5G phones are more easily available. People thought it was just would be available to the upper crust. This is a question of volume and how the market grows, he says.
Pranav Roach, managing director of Hughes Network Systems India Limited, a subsidiary of Hughes broadband satellite service provider, said satcom will be available on affordable phones. “These are global mass systems, so they have to be affordable. The handsets come with the capacity,” he said. Hughes is one of the investors in OneWeb, a British satellite service company that is launching broadband in various countries, including India.
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India has so far used Geostationary Earth Orbit satellites mostly for imagery and direct-to-home broadcasts. However, these systems have some limitations for two-way communication because they operate in an orbit that is 36,000 km away from Earth. This latency can become a problem when it comes to mission-critical data services that need real-time data access. But now players like Elon Musk’s Starlink and Jeff Bezos-promoted Project Kuiper are deploying Low Earth Orbit satellites that operate at much lower orbital distances, from 160 to 2,000 km, making them favorable for providing high-capacity broadband.
Globally, satcom services have so far been deployed to offer fixed broadband services and as backhaul infrastructure for telecom operators. Over 90 telecom operators representing approximately 5 billion connections globally have formed partnerships with satellite operators. However, technological advances have enabled satcom players to offer seamless broadband connectivity directly to users’ smartphones, bypassing traditional cell towers altogether.
Starlink actually sets up an eNodeB modem on its satellite. This modem works with existing smartphones and eliminates the need for additional hardware or software on a user’s smartphone, essentially acting as a mobile tower in space.
American chip maker Qualcomm designs the chipset that enables smartphones to receive satellite broadband signals. Manmeet Singh, Senior Director at Qualcomm India Pvt. Ltd said, “We are looking at making this available for a range of handsets, not limited to just high-end ones. The service will be available for IOT devices as well and can be used for logistics and tracking services,” said Singh.
Despite confidence in availability, Roach said it was too early to comment on whether satcom rates compare to land rates per MB. He listed variables like the spectrum being auctioned off as variables that will affect this aspect of the service. Currently, in the US, Starlink charges $90 to $120 per month for a speed of 20-250 Mbps while more traditional services such as T-Mobile Home Internet charge $60 per month for a speed of 72-245 Mbps.
However, Ramachandran said that while satcom will be competitive with terrestrial services, it will not surpass the latter in terms of cost in the near future. The mobile operators are under enormous financial pressure, which has reduced the telecom market to a duopoly. In comparison, investing in a satellite network is a one-time event with minimal additional investment required. “The cost of satcom will not be like terrestrial. The cost will be around the launch of the satellite, but you will not have any costs related to building out a terrestrial network as with terrestrial mobile services,” says Ramachandran.
At least half a dozen players, apart from Elon Musk-backed Starlink and Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper, are looking to enter the Indian satellite communications (satcom) market. This includes Munich-based Rivada Networks, California-headquartered Viasat, Barcelona’s Sateliot, Ottawa-based Telesat and Delaware-based Globalsat. While this gives broadband consumers more options, the incumbent telecom operators – Reliance Jio and Airtel – now have to worry about protecting their market.
