In a win for Elon Musk, Scindia says no to spectrum auction pitch from Ambani, Mittal

Elon Musk's Starlink to get satellite broadband spectrum allocation in India, not auctioned as demanded by Ambani and Mittal.

In a boost to Elon Musk's Starlink, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has said the spectrum for satellite broadband will be allocated and not auctioned as sought by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Mittal.

However, the satellite broadband spectrum will be not given free, and sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will fix a price for the resource, he told PTI in a text and video interview.

"Every country has to follow the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is the organisation that lays out the policy for spectrum in space or satellites, and the ITU has been very clear in terms of the spectrum being given out on an assignment basis. In addition, if you look across the world today, I cannot think of a single country that auctions spectrum for satellite," Mr. Scindia said.

India is a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency for digital technology.

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Mr. Musk's Starlink and global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation.

While Ambani's Reliance Jio has been vocal about the need to allocate such spectrum through an auction to provide a level playing field to legacy operators who buy airwaves and set up infrastructure like telecom towers, Mittal last month at an industry event where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present articulated the need to use bidding for such allocation.