Sunil Mittal urged governments and regulators across the globe to incentivise telecom operators for scaling up coverage in rural geographies
This comes barely a week after Mittal urged the Indian government to allocate satcom spectrum on a “shared basis” for rural and hard-to-reach areas
Last week, Mittal also urged the local authorities to formulate a satcom policy that does not discriminate against terrestrial providers, especially in urban areas
Bharti Group chairman Sunil Mittal believes that telcos should partner with satellite communication (satcom) operators to plug gaps in connectivity in rural areas.
As per Economic Times, Mittal urged governments and regulators across the globe to incentivise telecom operators for scaling up coverage in rural geographies.
“We have a mission to finish the job of covering the last 400 Mn people. Compete on the strength of your brands, your services, but don’t try to compete by building solo capital infrastructure,” Mittal reportedly said on Monday (March 3) at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Spain’s Barcelona.
This comes barely a week after Mittal urged the Indian government to allocate satcom spectrum on a “shared basis” for rural and hard-to-reach areas. In the same breath, he cautioned against administrative allocation (or on a shared basis) of satcom bandwidth in urban areas.
Last week, he also urged the local authorities to formulate a satcom policy that does not discriminate against terrestrial providers, especially in urban areas. Hinting that urban India is already paying one of the lowest internet tariffs globally, Mittal said then that satellite connectivity is necessary to serve dark and underserved areas.
Meanwhile, at the MWC 2025, Mittal also called on telecom authorities globally to lower taxes and allocate sufficient telecom spectrum at affordable rates. Noting that the average industry revenue growth is just around 2%, he said that telcos are facing “demands to buy expensive spectrum” year after year.
“This is one industry that is bearing the burden of building out the digital infrastructure across the globe. How much is this industry taking the load itself? The return on capital is just an average of 4 4%,” the Bharti Group chairman said.
The comments from Mittal come at a time when the Indian government is trying to figure out a way to allot satcom spectrum. Last week, reports surfaced that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) rejected a majority of the requests from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) regarding making “some” changes to the recommendations on the satcom authorisation regime.
While the DoT has been pitching for keeping satcom services under the main authorisation, TRAI has been batting for a separate authorisation regime, which has “reasonably light financial obligations including low entry fees”.
Meanwhile, the Centre has publicly clarified its stance, saying that satcom spectrum would be allotted without an auction but would still come at a “cost”.
This also comes at a time when the Indian satcom arena is witnessing intensifying competition as both global and local giants have been lining up to apply for licences. The likes of Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat Oneweb and Reliance-backed Jio-SES have already secured GMPCS (global mobile personal communications by satellite services) licences from the DoT.
On the other hand, Elon Musk-owned Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper too have knocked on the doors of Indian authorities to offer satcom services in the country. However, no player has been granted full authorisation to roll out commercial services in the country.
