Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, recently lost a battle with Elon Musk over India’s satellite spectrum.
However, if Musk’s Starlink provides services in India and the two companies compete on price, Ambani may face a more formidable obstacle.
Hours after Musk denounced the auction process being pursued by rival billionaire Ambani as “unprecedented,” the Indian government said on Tuesday that it would distribute spectrum for satellite broadband administratively rather than through an auction.
Laptops 1000Musk’s Starlink, a SpaceX subsidiary with 6,400 operational satellites orbiting the planet to offer 4 million users low-latency broadband, has openly stated interest in launching in India; however, regulatory obstacles have repeatedly thwarted its aspirations.
Since last year, Ambani, the CEO of Reliance Jio, the largest telecom operator in India, has worked to create a “balanced competitive landscape” and keep Musk at bay.
According to experts, a spectrum auction would have required far more funding and discouraged international competitors.
After investing $19 billion in airwave auctions, Reliance, which has long controlled the Indian telecom market, is worried that Musk may steal its broadband users and, as technology develops, its data and phone customers.
The Indian government claims it is in keeping with worldwide trends by allocating spectrum administratively to the first applicant.
Musk’s Starlink has already applied for the required permissions, but it has not specified when the process will begin.
Pricing would become a new arena of conflict between the two billionaires as a result of Starlink’s entry into the Indian market.
While Reliance has teamed with Luxembourg-based SES Astra, which non-profit CelesTrak claims has 38 satellites that Reliance intends to use, Musk has thousands of operating satellites.
