Jeff Bezos' Project Kuiper eyes India's satellite internet market after Musk's Starlink
New Delhi: Jeff Bezos-led
Project Kuiper
may enter India's lucrative
satellite internet
market hot on the heels of
Elon Musk
's
Starlink
, having recently approached the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for swift approval of its application.
Like Starlink, Kuiper plans to have massive
satcom
capacity in India. The Amazon-backed major plans to set up 10 gateways and two points of presence in Mumbai and Chennai, multiple people aware of the details told ET.
'The company wrote to DoT recently, requesting to expedite issuance of a letter of intent (LoI) for a satcom (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite) permit,' one of the persons said.
The letter was written before the DoT last week issued an LoI to Starlink, he added.
Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Reliance Jio-SES JV have already got the Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) permit.
Kuiper-Starlink to Generate Majority of India Capacity
The two have also got clearances from space regulator Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe).
Apple's satcom partner Globalstar has also applied to IN-SPACe for clearances to offer services in India.
'Amazon applied to DoT nearly two years back and, as the company has commenced commercial launch of satellites, it wants to secure all approvals before it starts offering commercial services later this year,' a second person cited above said.
Last month, Kuiper had deployed 27 satellites in space and more launches are planned in coming months. It plans to have a low earth orbit (LEO) constellation of over 3,200 satellites with most of them likely to be deployed by February-March next year.
The timelines may, however, vary as the first scheduled commercial launch got delayed by a few months, according to experts.
An ET query to
Amazon
regarding its request for expeditious approval remained unanswered at press time Wednesday.
Experts said that capacities generated by Kuiper and Starlink—which already has over 7,000 LEO satellites in space—would by far be the highest among competitors. In contrast, Eutelsat OneWeb has 648 LEO satellites and the Jio-SES combine will have around 11 medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites.
Starlink plans to have three gateways in India compared to Kuiper's 10, while Eutelsat-OneWeb and Jio-SES have two gateways each.
So, the majority of capacity that can be generated and used in India will come from the two US majors.
Currently, non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites in India have a total bandwidth capacity of about 70 gigabits per second (Gbps) while that of geostationary orbit (GSO) satellites is lower at about 58 Gbps. But once the LEO constellations are operational, the capacity will skyrocket to a few terabytes.
In terms of distance from earth, Kuiper's satellites are placed at 450 kilometres above earth, slightly lower than Starlink's altitude of about 550 km. OneWeb satellites are at greater distances than Starlink, at about 1,200 km in the LEO orbit while Jio-SES operates in MEO orbit at over 8,000 km.
Satellites, which are near the earth orbit, can offer better speeds but the coverage is lower, so more numbers need to be put up in space.
Kuiper plans to offer broadband speeds ranging from 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) through various plans across a variety of consumers, including retail, enterprise, etc. The pricing details are to be announced later.
Besides the GMPCS and space regulator's approval, companies need spectrum to be allotted for starting commercial services in India.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recently recommended administrative allocation of satcom spectrum for a fee pegged at 4% of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR). Once the Union cabinet approves the proposal, spectrum will be allocated to companies for commercial launch of satellite internet services.
India's space economy is reckoned to have a potential to touch $44 billion by 2033, boosting its global share to 8% from 2% currently, as per IN-SPACe.
Both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have already partnered Starlink to sell its equipment and services at their outlets, besides exploring other means of cooperation. Starlink is exploring talks with other satcom companies for potential tie-ups, ET had reported recently.
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