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Informist, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026

 

By Shakshi Jain

 

NEW DELHI – Telecommunications major Bharti Airtel Ltd. is prepared to roll out commercial satellite broadband services as soon as the government finalises the spectrum pricing and allocation, a senior company executive told Informist. Much like its play in other geographies, Bharti Airtel will target the business-to-business segment in India and the pricing will vary from customer to customer, the official said.

 

In the business-to-business segment, a service-level agreement pricing model prevails wherein the cost of a network service scales up or down based on performance metrics like uptime, response times, and resolution speeds, guaranteed by the provider. "We are always into enterprise segment. We are never into the retail segment," the company executive said, referring to services in the satellite communication segment.

 

Bharti Airtel-backed Eutelsat OneWeb provides low earth orbit satellite communication services in global markets exclusively as a business-to-business provider. It holds the Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite license from the Department of Telecommunications to deliver commercial satellite broadband services across India. It also holds the necessary authorisation from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre.

 

Gaurang Shah, head investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services Ltd., believes Bharti Airtel could be among the first players to launch satellite communication services in India, a move that will help the company gain market share and command pricing. "First mover advantage will definitely come. Till the time the second or third player comes into this, Bharti will have command over premium pricing. Once you see more players come in, then price rationalisation will come in, that will depend upon the kind of offers that are offered to the clients and, of course, how they are able to roll it out," Shah said.

 

Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea Ltd., which has partnered with AST SpaceMobile to provide direct-to-device satellite communication services, will cater to retail customers with competitive pricing, a company executive told Informist. "Once you do a partnership, you want to reach out for the segments like retail... Through this partnership and D2D (direct-to-device), obviously, it's more competitive," the executive said.

 

The debt-ridden company, which has charted a three-year turnaround plan involving capital expenditure of INR 450 billion, is not currently considering offerings based on 5G network slicing, but the option is not completely off the table, according to the company official. In what became a controversial move that sparked a debate over net neutrality, Bharti Airtel launched India's first commercial 5G network slicing retail offering earlier this year. Eventually, the company dropped the "Priority Postpaid" branding and renamed the service "Fast Lane" to tone down the debate over tiered internet speeds.

 

India is transitioning toward administrative allocation of satellite communication spectrum under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, while finalising pricing and authorisation frameworks through the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Department of Telecommunications. Pricing remains unresolved as DoT and TRAI remain divided: TRAI has recommended a 4?justed gross revenue usage fee with an extra INR 500 per urban customer annually, while DoT has proposed a flat 5% levy. The DoT is currently finalising the rules and pricing framework for satellite spectrum, which will eventually be sent to the Cabinet for final approval.  End

 

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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