Starlink disputes predatory pricing allegations at Trai open house

Starlink on Friday asserted that it maintains absolute transparency on pricing as Elon Musk-backed satellite internet service provider vehemently dismissed arguments aired by certain players about "predatory pricing of next-generation systems" in a high-voltage open house discussion conducted by TRAI.

With battlelines between terrestrial players and satellite aspirants clearly drawn, TRAI's marathon open house discussion that stretched for several hours saw telcos Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel banding together and speaking in unison about the need for level-playing-field as India works out the norms for satcom spectrum.

Jio, which has made a case for the auction of satellite spectrum, on Friday said it is "not afraid of competition" but that 'same services same rules' must apply.

 

"We are working in a hyper-competitive market. We are not afraid of competition. It is the other way around. Actually, the entities who are wanting to be in this space via satellite, in the telecommunication space via satellite, are afraid of competition, and that's why they want all this kind of protection," Ravi Gandhi of Reliance Jio said.

During the open house discussion, Parnil Urdhwareshe, Director, Starlink Satellite Communications asserted that Indian users want satellite broadband services and that these "intelligent consumers" have the right to choose an operator who will provide them with an affordable, high-quality service.

Starlink prices for any country are readily available on its website, and that it is proud of making satellite broadband affordable for users who have so far been unserved, he pointed out.

"...I wanted to very quickly touch on unfortunate and entirely false allegation of possible predatory pricing by next-generation systems. Debunking this is thankfully very easy. We encourage TRAI and all interested participants to simply look at Starlink's operations in any of the 113 markets we are live in today...we maintain absolute transparency on Starlink pricing and performance around the world," he said.

Urdhwareshe added: "Starlink prices for any country are readily available on our website for anyone to cross check the overwhelming public evidence against these allegations. That said, we are proud of making satellite broadband affordable for users who have so far been unserved, and where certain other satellite operators are committed to doing the same."  He argued that users choose satellite broadband when they lack other options for reasons of coverage, reliability or affordability and all such users have an equal right to crossing over the digital divide.

"In our experience, over 113 markets as of today, users always choose satellite broadband when they lack other options for reasons of coverage or reliability or affordability. And we think all of these users have an equal right to crossing the digital divide. So a false distinction between their lack of connectivity versus traditional use cases is fundamentally against any goals of universal access, which is really the point of services such as Starlink," Urdhwareshe said.

All satellite operators should be able to serve any user who requires their services across India rather than distinctions being created based on their preferred markets, he argued.

SpaceX, Urdhwareshe said, has a demonstrated history of serving both underserved areas and underserved users.

"Users choose Starlink because their current options are unavailable, unreliable or too expensive. Now some commentators are explicitly arguing that those users should continue to be stuck with services that either don't exist or are too unreliable or are too expensive...the justification for satellite broadband services is that Indian users want them, and they are intelligent consumers who have the right to choose an operator that will actually provide them with an affordable, high-quality service," he said.

It is pertinent to mention here that Musk's Starlink and global peers like Amazon's Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation of satcom spectrum.

While Ambani's Reliance Jio has been vocal about the need to allocate such spectrum through an auction to give a level playing field to legacy operators who buy airwaves and set up infrastructure like telecom towers, Sunil Mittal last month at an industry event where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present articulated the need to use bidding for such allocation.

Jio and Mittal's Bharti Airtel - India's largest and second-largest operators respectively - feel that giving away the satellite broadband airwaves at a pre-decided price by the government will create an uneven playing field since they had to compete in an auction to get spectrum for their terrestrial wireless phone networks.

Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has made it clear that spectrum for satellite broadband will be allocated and not auctioned. The satellite broadband spectrum will however be not given free and sector regulator TRAI will fix a price for the resource, the Minister has said.