In a significant development in the Indian telecom and space sector, private firm Eutelsat-OneWeb has received the necessary clearances to beam 4G-speed internet from their satellites into Indian territory and the country’s territorial waters.
At present, the company is awaiting satellite spectrum allocation from the Government of India. The firm has a constellation of more than 640 satellites, placed 1200kms above the earth’s surface.
Notably, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), layed a timely role in placing 72 of these satellites into orbit at a crucial time for the company.
trending now
Eutelsat-OneWeb is the first to receive this clearance in India at a time when there have been reports of Elon Musk’s Starlink and Mukesh Ambani’s JioSpaceFiber (a partnership between Reliance Jio and SES) also attempting to foray into this segment in India.
While not much is known about the progress of Starlink’s India presence and the ground hardware for the same, recent reports have indicated a technical setback faced by SES, temporarily affecting the functionality of the O3b mPower satellites and thereby the JioSpaceFiber venture.
Eutelsat-OneWeb aims to provide internet services to the rural and unconnected areas, territorial waters of India on a 24/7 basis. The total quantum of internet speed that can be provided would be 21Gbps, they added.
Bharti Group Chairman and Vice-President (Co-Chair) of the Board of Directors of Eutelsat Group, Sunil Bharti Mittal, said “We are pleased to note the Indian space regulator’s green light to launch Eutelsat OneWeb’s commercial satellite broadband services in India. This will be a critical step forward to meet India’s ambition of providing internet connectivity for all and will enable the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India. Eutelsat OneWeb is ready to deploy as soon as it receives the final spectrum authorization to launch commercial services.”
“As a next logical step, we are sanguine that the government will soon take the decision on satellite spectrum allocation to pave the way for the commencement of next-generation satellite communications in India,” said Lt. Gen AK Bhatt(Retd), who serves as the Director General of the Indian space industry body, Indian Space Association.
On Tuesday, IN-SPACe, the government-run facilitator and regulator for private space firms in India said that it has authorised Eutelsat OneWeb constellation to enable the provisioning of its capacity in India for providing communication services.
However, the IN-SPACe authorisation provided to the firm has a validity period of five years and is subject to the assignment of the spectrum by the Indian Government’s Department of Telecommunication (DoT) for both the gateways(ground-based stations that communicate with the satellites) and user terminal operations, and other requisite regulating licenses and approvals.
Eutelsat-OneWeb said they have also obtained in-principle approval to establish and operate two gateways in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, which would secure the provision of vital high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity to customers across India, once services are rolled out.
Low Earth orbit satellites, such as those operated by Eutelsat-Oneweb, circle the Earth at an altitude of 600-1200kms, travelling at high speeds of approximately 28,000kmph.
Therefore, a single satellite would be visible from one point on Earth only for a handful of minutes, which means that each satellite offers coverage only over a small area at a time.
In order to operate any service from LEO, one would require a fleet of satellites covering the earth and performing a sort of endless relay race – where one takes over after the other.
This is precisely why Eutelsat-OneWeb operates more than 640 satellites in its fleet. Being close to the earth, it is possible to rapidly beam down internet signals from these satellites and enable internet usage on-board flights, ships, and even in remote areas (where terrestrial communication connectivity is sparse) for high-speed utilities such as video-calling, online gaming, etc.
In contrast, geostationary satellites are perched at 36,000-km above the Earth’s surface. When looked at from the blue planet, they always appear to be in a constant position at all times. This is because they move at the same speed at the earth’s rotation.
Being as far above from the Earth, three equally-spaced geostationary satellites are capable of providing near-total global coverage. However, the regions near the earth’s poles would find it very challenging to receive signals from these satellites. Also, there is a considerable amount of lag due to the long distance between the satellite and Earth. Therefore, it is not ideal for telephony and video-calling, online gaming, etc.
Source: Thanks WIONews.com