Amazon’s Project Kuiper is likely to join the club of Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, and the satellite arm of Reliance Jio with the approval for licenses to offer satcom services in India.
As per the official sources, the Jeff Bezos-led firm has provided comprehensive details to DoT including satellite gateway setting, data storage and transfer. Its network diagram is currently under the evaluation of the Department of Telecommunications. If the documents get verified without any hassle and further submission, the proposal will be further assessed by an inter-ministerial committee in the next meeting that includes officials of the DoT, ISRO members, and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Following this stage, the proposal will also require the approval of the Home Ministry to ensure security regulations.
With the move, Amazon has become the fourth such firm to seek a license to offer satcom services in India followed by Eutelsat OneWeb, Jio’s satcom unit, and Starlink, of which, the former two have already been granted the GMPCS license. A global mobile personal communication satellite services (GMPCS) permit and IN-SPACe approval are required to be eligible to offer satcom services in India, while spectrum from DoT is a form of allocation by the government.
The e-commerce giant applied for a GMPCS licence in 2023 which is a prerequisite to offer satellite communications services in India. While Elon Musk’s Starlink’s GMPCS license has long been in queue on account of adherence to certain government regulations, Amazon might receive the approval for the same before the former. Amazon had also applied to the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACEe) in Tandem with the purpose of fulfilling regulatory and eligibility requirements.
Project Kuiper plans to offer satellite broadband services by the end of 2024 with an initial satellite constellation having 3,232 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.
