Amazon’s Project Kuiper, in the race to offer satellite internet service in India, is aiming for a launch next year, though it trails rivals Starlink, OneWeb and Jio Satellite, two people aware of the matter said.
The delay in India foray is because the Amazon arm is still to have a sufficient satellite constellation to launch the services commercially and secure necessary licence and approval in the country, they said, requesting not to be identified. The company is yet to get its network and ground system designs to comply with a set of security conditions laid out by the Indian government.
The company continues to be in discussion with the government on compliance and is expected to complete the formalities by this year-end, said the first of the two persons cited earlier. This person added that like peers, Kuiper also has requested the government to allow serving other geographies with satellite systems or gateways installed in India.
Queries emailed to Kuiper did not elicit any response till press time.
Currently, the government has given a go-ahead to three operators – OneWeb, Jio-SES joint venture, and Elon Musk’s Starlink – to launch the satellite communication services in the country. However, the consumers will only be able to get the satellite internet services after the government allots the spectrum and finalises the fee which these companies will pay the government.
According to KPMG, India’s satellite communication sector is expected to reach $20 billion by 2028.
In May, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended to the department of telecommunications (DoT) that satellite companies must pay 4% of their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) as spectrum charges to the government. In addition, Trai also introduced an additional annual charge of ₹500 per subscriber for fixed satellite services providers in urban areas.
“The opportunity in the market is much larger than what one player can serve, and Kuiper is not viewing the project from the perspective of being the first or second to enter,” the second person who is close to the company said, adding that Kuiper is progressing based on its own benchmarks and not benchmarking itself with others.
Compliance and licensing
At this stage, the company continues to engage with the government on certain compliance requirements such as local storage of data in view of India’s sensitivity to national security.
In October 2023, Kuiper submitted its application to get the global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) licence, required to launch such services in the country. The company has also submitted its application with the Centre’s nodal agency, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), to get approval on its satellite constellation.
Currently, Kuiper has over 100 satellites in orbit. The company, which had committed to invest over $10 billion in the venture, plans to launch 3,200 satellites to form a constellation for satellite internet connectivity. By the end of the year, Kuiper expects to have sufficient satellites to start commercial service in certain countries, the second person said.
In comparison, Starlink has over 6,700 satellites globally, whereas OneWeb has 648 satellites, according to data from their websites.
Local operations
Kuiper, however, has built a small team in the country so far to better understand local market needs and tap enterprise customers. The current team is focusing on business development and regulatory work, the second person said. In August, the company listed two positions for hiring in India – Regulatory lead for Middle East and India, and technology business developer.
“The Regulatory Communications Lead – for the Middle East and India will be the external point of contact for Project Kuiper’s service compliance obligation deliverables in front of Middle East and Indian telecommunications regulators,” the company said in the job description on its website.
The technology business developer for Kuiper Ground Infrastructure Services (GIS) will lead land acquisition and entitlement efforts for ground infrastructure locations in India and Southeast Asia for the company.
“Although Kuiper is behind the other satellite internet services providers, it could leverage the enterprise client base of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to cover B2B customers and Amazon.com e-commerce platform to tap retail consumers and grab the market share,” a consultant to the satellite companies said on the condition of anonymity.
Global contracts, regional plans
Globally, Kuiper has started signing early customer contracts, including deals with American media company Vrio Corp’s DIRECTV to provide satellite internet services in South America. The company has also signed a deal with Australian government-owned NBN to provide satellite internet services.
Even as India continues to work on the contours of satellite internet rules, the companies including Kuiper, OneWeb and others have also been urging the government to serve other locations as well from the gateways in the country.
“We have been requesting the government to allow the gateways in India to serve neighbouring countries, for example Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka. The government has been kind enough to consider that and we are hoping that a policy announcement will also follow,” said Rahul Vatts, chief regulatory officer at Bharti Airtel and director at OneWeb India, at an industry event in New Delhi on 17 July.
“This initiative (allowing Indian gateways to serve other geographies) is not solely aimed at reducing capital expenditure (capex) but is also seen as a way to provide viable service to smaller neighboring countries where it might not be cost-effective to establish ground infrastructure in each location,” the second person cited earlier said.
This person added that satcom companies could also look at showing the government that they can achieve data isolation, ensuring that Indian traffic stays within India and traffic from other countries remains within their respective nations.
“They are actively looking to explain to the government that even if they are allowed to serve other geographies, their network is secure and will prevent data from leaking outside the country,” this person added.
However, in an interaction with Mint on 25 August, minister of state for communications Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said, “whatever (licence) we have given applies only to India. We will not be allowing anything for outside the country.”
Security and compliance requirements
On 5 May, DoT issued guidelines to tighten security as satellite communication companies here move closer to starting satellite internet services in the country.
Companies seeking a GMPCS licence in India would require security clearance for specific gateway or hub locations in the country, per the department of telecommunications’ guidelines.
Among the 29 requirements, the government has also mandated data localisation, lawful interception, and local manufacturing requirements for satcom companies.
A key challenge with compliance is the mandate to set up network control and monitoring centres within India, giving India control over satellite telemetry–on-ground management and monitoring of satellites based on transmitted data, one of the officials said.
Indian authorities require that telemetry and control of satellites serving Indian users be done within the country to ensure national security and data sovereignty.
Satellite internet services providers will have to submit a yearly plan to the government showing how they will gradually increase local manufacturing of ground segments of their satellite network in the country. The government has asked companies looking to provide satellite internet services in the country to target at least 20% indigenisation of the ground segment of their satellite network within five years of beginning commercial operations in the country.
