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.

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