Musk Vs Jio: Elon Musk Blasts Jio's Spectrum Move, Government Responds
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00:00We have big Indian telecoms like Jio, essentially, which are pushing for the auction method.
00:06Now, what is the satellite spectrum debate about?
00:10Who is supporting what?
00:13We will be looking at all sides of the story.
00:15But first, let's go across to Rishabh Bhatnagar, who has more details about this.
00:21Hi, Rishabh.
00:22Rishabh, we see a bit of a standoff, really, emerging between telecom players and the government
00:30Give us a sense of how this started and what essentially is at the core of it.
00:39A few months is when we saw Jio actually write to the telecom regulator in India, which is Tri,
00:48and they had demanded that there should be a level playing field for telecom operators,
00:54as well as satellite internet providers.
00:57This is the crux of the issue that happened.
00:59And why we're talking about this today is that we saw at IMC yesterday,
01:05on day one of the Indian Mobile Congress, is when this entire debate was reignited.
01:11Now, it's basically India's major private telcos versus the large internet providers of the world
01:19that use satellites, such as Elon Musk, Starlink, as well as other members of the BIF,
01:27which is the Global Broadband Association, which also includes Amazon's Project Kuiper.
01:34At the heart of it is that there is no level playing field,
01:38that if satellite internet providers want to enter urban areas where private and retail
01:45customers exist, where people with a much more paying potential exist, they should come in with
01:50licenses and not purely because the government has allocated them some share of the spectrum.
01:56This is the demand of the private telcos.
01:59But why this is a bit of an issue is because global standards dictate that satellite spectrum
02:05should be administratively allocated and not optioned off.
02:09So, the demand of these telcos is going against what is actually stated in the Telecom Act,
02:14as well as what the global ITU standards dictate.
02:19Give us a bit of a background also on Elon Musk.
02:23Now, he tweeted earlier, and that is one of the facets that has actually set off
02:29this huge debate in this space.
02:31So, tell us more about that.
02:35Right.
02:35So, Elon Musk operates one of the largest satellite internet providers, as I said,
02:40Starlink, which is present in many, many countries.
02:44But India is not one currently.
02:46They are eyeing an entry, and that entry was supposed to be through this administrative
02:50allocation that the government is supposed to hand.
02:53And this is how they plan to enter a large market like India.
02:58So, Elon Musk's reaction coming in yesterday, and he termed the telcos' demand as unprecedented,
03:05because it truly is, because ITUs, which is the global authority, which is the global
03:10regulator for this, has very clearly stated that satellite spectrum is shared spectrum,
03:17so it cannot be auctioned off.
03:19And it has said, and the government has also come in yesterday, Jyotir Aditya Singh, the
03:26Minister of Communications, also indicated that auctions seem tough, given that existing
03:31laws and regulations already point in favour of administrative allocations.
03:37So, Elon Musk's entry, rather, was unprecedented.
03:41But his reaction, too, stated that this demand by telcos is also unprecedented.