American satellite giants Starlink and Amazon Kuiper have signed their first commercial deals with VSAT players in India, marking a key step toward launching enterprise and government satellite broadband services, even before satellite spectrum is officially allocated, sources told Moneycontrol.
With these partnerships, the low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband firms aim to monetise their offerings in B2B (enterprise) and B2G (government) segments, while simultaneously preparing to serve the retail consumer market, where pricing models are still being finalised.
“Both Starlink and Amazon have been working to form partnerships in India. They are already scouting VSAT partners and have secured a few in India, focusing on the B2B and B2G spaces. They want their India capacity to be optimally utilized,” a source familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol.
Some of the prominent VSAT players in India include Hughes Communications, Nelco, and Inmarsat.
Both Starlink and Amazon Kuiper aim to operate in both the enterprise and retail segments, directly competing with Eutelsat OneWeb, which will adopt a sell-through model via Indian partners, according to another person familiar with the plans.
“Starlink and Kuiper are going for a hybrid go-to-market model in India. They are going to offer service directly and are also forging partnerships to sell through partners. Starlink, for instance, has already announced a partnership with Reliance Jio and Airtel, which is the sell-through model,” the second person added.
Starlink, he noted, will soon begin offering connections directly to consumers via its website. “Kuiper is also going to be the same and will not rely on a single master distributor, nor are they going to do it all themselves. India is a beginner market with so much diversity, hence this approach,” he added.
VSAT service providers typically enable connectivity for bank branches, ATMs, remote gas stations, warehouses, retail chains, cellular backhaul, maritime and in-flight connectivity, and defence infrastructure, all of which stand to benefit from higher-bandwidth LEO-based upgrades.
“Companies and government departments run with less connectivity, but they want retail automation, remote monitoring, and AI operations. Defence is also a huge potential user with higher bandwidth, which can be enabled only by LEO satellite-based broadband connectivity,” the second person said.
Hughes Communications India's CEO, President, and Managing Director, Shivaji Chatterjee, separately told Moneycontrol that the company is 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."
Queries sent to Starlink and Amazon didn't elicit any response.
With these developments, Starlink joins the ranks of Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite in terms of regulatory progress. It received a Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) license last month, becoming the third company authorised to offer commercial satcom services in India.
While Starlink now holds a GMPCS permit, its IN-SPACe authorisation is still pending. The Indian space regulator has issued a draft agreement to Starlink, which is expected to be signed soon, a government official told Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity. "They will soon be approved. It is a matter of time now."
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is also set to grant trial spectrum to Starlink to complete security compliance demonstrations.
Just days ago, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia met top SpaceX executives, the parent company of Starlink, to discuss collaborative opportunities in powering India's digital infrastructure with satellite technologies.
Meanwhile, Amazon Kuiper is awaiting clearances from both GMPCS and IN-SPACe. The company has completed all required security and operational checks, and its application is likely to be reviewed in the upcoming inter-ministerial standing committee meeting.
The DoT is expected to soon finalise rules and pricing for administrative satellite spectrum allocation, based on recent recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
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