On 24th Sept 2022, ET published a story quoting the Telecom Minister stating that the DoT has sent a reference to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to give recommendations on the rules for assigning satellite spectrum through auction. The purpose of this note is to analyze whether auctioning airwaves for providing satellite services is feasible in all situations, if not, then what alternate assignment strategy is available before the DoT, and how such a strategy will significantly increase the workload of the DOT for managing the satellite spectrum.
The note also analyses if the DoT chooses to auction the airwaves for providing satellite services then how the auction rules need to be tweaked, and what additional flexibilities it will have to empower the satellite operators with in order to ensure that the airwaves are efficiently used and the data speeds (throughput) do not get compromised.
