Opposing Jio’s call to spectrum auction, Sunil Mittal looks at an unified action plan for the same

Sunil Mittal led Bharti Enterprises recently said that Reliance Jio’s entry into satcom telecommunications in India will not pose threat to OneWeb, the satcom owned by Bharti group. Mittal warned that no satcom company would participate if the spectrum meant for the segment was to be auctioned. This would mean India would be facing the risk of excluding broadband from space as a connectivity option.

Mittal was heard quoting on the sidelines of the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, “VI is still cash strapped and left out in the woods, and needs serious investment for stability”. He was optimistic that the government’s package for the telecom sector will bring in huge relief for VI. He also said, “Satcom will not disrupt the telecom industry, as the two are not on loggerheads for any kind of competition”.

Mittal told ET that Jio would be just distributing bandwidth, while OneWeb will be backing both production and distribution of bandwidth in India. OneWeb is a low earth orbit satellite operator which has Bharti Global and the UK Govt as major shareholders. It plans to start offering internet-from-space services in India by mid 2022. He opposed Jio’s call to auction spectrum saying, “This is a shared spectrum. Everybody will use the same spectrum; there is no question of exclusion”. Mittal again urged the Indian Government to lower the 5G spectrum prices. He added, “All we want is a balance between revenue and Digital India’s vision”.