Fearing Cartel, Retd.Top Bureaucrat Urges DoT to Review Allowing StarLink to Usurp Spectrum

New Delhi: Opposing the reported collaboration of two domestic telecom majors – Reliance Jio and Airtel India – with Elon Musk’s Starlink for providing hi-speed internet access in India, former Government of India Secretary, EAS Sarma, has demanded a review of the decision by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to safeguard national security.

In a letter to DoT Secretary, Neeraj Mittal, Sarma said satellite spectrum instead should be reserved exclusively for strategic uses, such by defence services and Indian Space Research Organisation.

The former top bureaucrat, who has been flagging the issue for some times and has earlier written to the DoT secretary as well, flagged latest reports about the US threatening to “shut off” StarLink in Ukraine, “unless Ukraine allows a lion’s share in its mineral resources in favour of the US”, adding that “your Department should tighten safeguards against StarLink.”

“Moreover, StarLink is known to work in close collaboration with the US defence services and it will gain an undue strategic advantage in the Indian skies, if India allots satellite spectrum to it” Sarma wrote.

He also highlighted that if reports of collaboration were true, “it implies that Jio, Airtel and StarLink will together form a cartel to dominate satellite spectrum use at the cost of millions of telecom customers in India, in outright violation of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum case.”

Read the full letter below: 

To

Dr. Neeraj Mittal

Secretary

Dept of Telecommunications (DOT)

Govt of India

Dear Dr Mittal,

I refer to my letter of 23rd February 2025 pointing out that, in view of the latest reports about the US threatening to “shut off” StarLink in Ukraine, unless Ukraine allows a lion’s share in its mineral resources in favour of the US, your Department should tighten safeguards against StarLink. 

In my letter of 19th December 2024 addressed to the Cabinet Secretary (https://countercurrents.org/2024/12/satellite-spectrum-should-be-exclusively-reserved-for-strategic-uses-do-not-compromise-national-security-to-accommodate-foreign-telecom-players/) and in my earlier correspondence with your Department (https://countercurrents.org/2024/11/reserve-satellite-spectrum-for-isro-defence-applications-imprudent-and-illegal-to-allot-it-to-elon-musks-starlink/), 

I had proposed that satellite spectrum be reserved for defence and other stratehgic uses in India.

I am surprised that DOT should go out of the way to accommodate Elon Musk’s StarLink by allotting it strategic satellite spectrum, in outright violation of the Supreme Court’s stipulation that it should be allotted only through a transparent auction process. 

Moreover, StarLink is known to work in close collaboration with the US defence services and it will gain an undue strategic advantage in the Indian skies, if India allots satellite spectrum to it.

While the DOT, evidently for extraneous reasons, has chosen to ignore these serious public concerns, the latest reports (https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/airtel-starlink-jio-starlink-partnership-airtel-and-jios-agreements-and-disagreements-with-elon-musk-starlink-ambani-11741752470119.html) suggest that the two domestic telecom operators,namely, Jio and Airtel, who in the past had appropriated domestic 5G spectrum without any competition worth its name, have since entered into agreements with Elon Musk’s StarLink to offer Starlink’s broadband and other internet services to its customers in India.  

If this is true, it implies that Jio, Airtel and StarLink will together form a cartel to dominate satellite spectrum use at the cost of millions of telecom customers in India, in outright violation of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in the 2G spectrum case. 

How is it being permitted by DOT and TRAI? 

I understand that StarLink has demanded that DOT should relax some security clauses in the license being given to it for satellite spectrum use. If it is so, it is detrimental to the national interest.If DOT allows such a regressive cartelisation to materialise, I am afraid that it is wading into a scam far worse and more egregious than the  2G spectrum scam of the earlier UPA days! 

It is unfortunate that the DOT, perhaps fully supported by the political leadership at the Centre, should allow a cartel of domestic and overseas telecom operators to appropriate highly strategic satellite spectrum, permitting them to compromise the interests of millions of mobile and broadband users in the country. 

I demand that the DOT review its decision to permit StarLink to appropriate satellite spectrum, stop its machinations to form a cartel with domestic telecom operators and allot satellite spectrum exclusively for strategic uses such by defence services and ISRO.

Yours sincerely,

E A S Sarma

Former Secretary to the Government of India

Visakhapatnam

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org