MC EXCLUSIVE Hughes eyes windfall from Starlink, OneWeb as LEO satellite race heats up in India

Satcom

With commercial launches by Starlink and OneWeb inching closer in India, Hughes Communications is positioning itself to ride the low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite wave, betting on a surge in high-speed broadband demand from enterprise and government customers.

Hughes expects to become a key go-to-market partner for all major LEO players, including Starlink, Amazon’s Kuiper, and Canada’s Telesat, especially as regulatory clearance nears and spectrum pricing norms are being finalised.

“Whenever Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper or Telesat bring their services commercially, we are going to be the gainers as service providers because we have the contracts with incumbent customers. 80% of the enterprise and government market is going to be existing names,” Shivaji Chatterjee, CEO, President and Managing Director at Hughes Communications India Private Ltd (HCIPL), told Moneycontrol.

HCIPL is a joint venture between Hughes Communications India and Bharti Airtel, providing satellite broadband services in India. HCIPL is also Eutelsat OneWeb’s distribution partner, providing Low Earth Orbit (LEO) connectivity services across India. Hughes, through its parent company EchoStar, is a shareholder in Eutelsat OneWeb.

LEO operators will partner with VSAT incumbents to tap into India’s enterprise and government sectors, given the complexity of onboarding critical clients, such as banks or state departments, Chatterjee said.

“It's a mix of our incumbency and experience in terms of delivering projects thereby we stand to gain. We have been starved of bandwidth. We have implemented SD-WAN and non-satellite networks to retain the customer. Whichever customers have stayed with us in those 10% underserved areas, this is a very good chance to upgrade them,” he said.

Hughes sees untapped opportunity across defence, retail automation, remote monitoring, and land mobility, all of which need low-latency, high-throughput connectivity that only LEO systems can provide. Proof-of-concept trials are already underway with enterprise clients, he said.

The company is in advanced talks with Starlink and Amazon to become their Indian launch partners.

“We are in discussions with all LEO-based satellite players in India. As a key incumbent, we will definitely be one of their main go-to-market partners for the B2B and B2G segments,” he added.

Moneycontrol, on June 30, exclusively reported that American satellite giants Starlink and Amazon Kuiper have signed their first commercial deals with VSAT players in India. With these partnerships, the low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband firms aim to monetise their offerings in the B2B (enterprise) and B2G (government) segments, while simultaneously preparing to serve the retail consumer market, where pricing models are still being finalised.

While OneWeb will primarily rely on VSAT partners under a sell-through model, Starlink and Kuiper are expected to adopt a hybrid approach, partnering for B2B/B2G services while offering direct-to-consumer services.

Hughes sees growth potential in segments like in-flight Wi-Fi, maritime connectivity, and defence use cases, all poised for transformation through LEO-based upgrades.

Meanwhile, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is finalising rules and pricing for administrative satellite spectrum allocation, following TRAI’s recommendations of a 4% AGR levy, plus Rs 3,500 per MHz and Rs 500 per urban subscriber annually.

The Digital Communications Commission meeting is likely to take place on July 29 to consider the TRAI recommendations on the allocation of spectrum for satellite broadband services, according to sources.

“The government has followed the middle ground, and the recommendations are not controversial….But I would say the speed is still slow with the regulator taking a long time to deliberate and come out with recommendations, and now DoT is taking its own time,” Chatterjee noted.

He also raised concerns about stringent cybersecurity guidelines for global LEO players that operate centralised, borderless networks.

“For a global constellation provider, the guidelines are stringent because you have built your network to be a global network. You build your software to be globally managed. You build your NOC to be centrally controlled… But you can't have a network suddenly separated so easily,” he said.

However, he clarified that most LEO providers are already demonstrating compliance. “They are compliant with these guidelines by 80% and since they are aware of these for many months, they have been demonstrating successfully.”