Nelco, a Tata group company, is almost close to signing a commercial deal with Telesat, a Canadian firm, to acquire the latter’s Lightspeed brand for rapid satellite broadband services in India. This puts the two companies up against Bharti Enterprises-backed OneWeb, Elon Musk's SpaceX, and Amazon.

A bit about Telesat is that after OneWeb, SpaceX, and Amazon, Telesat is the fourth global (LEO) satellite operator interested in entering India's satellite services market. It plans to provide satellite internet services on the 28 GHz band, also known as the Ka-band around the world.

Additionally, the Canadian firm plans to spend over $5 billion to frame a global constellation of 298 LEO satellites, equipped with global Lightspeed satellite internet services (including in India) expected by 2024.

At the same time, OneWeb and SpaceX are planning to launch satellite internet services in India next year, while Amazon is rumoured to be interested in the market as part of Project Kuiper, its worldwide space internet initiative.

Experts regard India as a crucial satellite internet market with over a $1 billion yearly revenue opportunity, prompting Tata-Telesat to enter the relatively embryonic fast broadband-from-space category.

This is the situation since about 75 percent of rural India lacks access to broadband, and many sites lack cellular or fibre connectivity. As a result, LEO satellite systems are being viewed as a feasible alternative, despite the fact that they are currently expensive.

In India, the Tata-Telesat partnership intends to operate on a business-to-business (B2B) model, similar to OneWeb. Telesat's satellite bandwidth capacity will be made available to telecom operators for cellular backhaul in distant areas with limited mobile infrastructure.

The word on the street is that Nelco and Telesat have signed a master services agreement (MSA) to deliver Lightspeed LEO (low-earth orbit) satellite services in India, and that the commercial agreements are being finalized.

Nelco is said to be focusing on B2B, with cellular backhauls/mobility, distant village connectivity, and fulfilling enterprise needs for dependable connectivity with fiber-like latency in rural locations through satellite likely to be the key markets.

After the upcoming new Spacecom policy clarifies the rules for setting up in-country satellite gateways by overseas non-geostationary satellite system operators or LEO satellite service providers, the collaboration is expected to prompt an application to the government for various statutory approvals, including land rights.

Tata and Telesat are expected to dwell upon ways to deduct the cost of end-user access terminals to make satellite broadband more accessible in India. For that matter, Telesat is collaborating with a global ecosystem of hardware manufacturers to bring low-cost user terminals to market, given that businesses embrace an open architecture approach and are open to local cooperate with commercial and government partners.

The satellite sector has been waiting for the new Spacecom policy for several months, which is expected to outline the broad licencing rules for LEO satellite systems operators as well as provide clarity on the framework for the latter's establishment of in-country satellite gateways.
The new regulation is also expected to allow 100 percent foreign direct investment in satellite communications via the automatic route.

However, the industry is concerned about the Department of Space's present dual function as licensor, market regulator, and satellite operator, which it claims creates a conflict of interest for commercial satellite manufacturers and satcom service providers.