Space broadband to immensely benefit unserved, underserved areas: Hughes

In an interaction with ETSatCom’s Ashutosh Kumar, Hughes Network Systems’ President Pranav Roach highlighted that India’s terrestrial telecom sector has advanced from 2G to 4G, and will now move to 5G whereas, the space sector has been stuck on 2G due to regulatory restrictions even though the broadband-from-space presents a “huge opportunity” for the country and its citizens.

NEW DELHI: Satellite-broadband solutions and services provider Hughes Network Systems said the global space sector is $500 billion and could rise to $1 trillion in the next 7-14 years, however, the Indian space sector’s share is minuscule or non-existent currently.

In an interaction with ETSatCom’s Ashutosh Kumar, Hughes Network Systems’ President Pranav Roach highlighted that India’s terrestrial telecom sector has advanced from 2G to 4G, and will now move to 5G whereas, the space sector has been stuck on 2G due to regulatory restrictions even though the broadband-from-space presents a “huge opportunity” for the country and its citizens. Edited excerpts:

We have seen a lot of momentum over the past few months. So, what, according to you, is the way forward for India and how is the SatCom sector placed today?

It’s unfortunate that while the terrestrial mobile or telecom sector has moved from 2G to 2.5G, to 3G, and to 4G, and now we are talking about 5G but unfortunately in space, we are stuck with 2G — not from a technological perspective but due to the regulatory restrictions.

To put things in perspective in terms of numbers, I will say that today, globally the space sector is roughly close to $500 billion and it could be close to $1 trillion in the next 7-8 or 14 years [globally]. In India, it’s unfortunate because, it’s not even a little of it, it’s almost non-existent.

Just to give you a comparison, the satellites we’re using in India today have a total throughput of just maybe 1 Gbps or 2 Gbps. Globally, we’re already past 500 Gbps and are moving towards 1000 Gbps.

So that has an impact on two things — the capacity and the most important factor is that it has an inverse relationship with price. In India, on a per Mbps/month basis, we have almost 3-10 times or even more of the global rates. So, if the global rate is at $400 a month then India would be making it for almost $2000. The way it works is that the space segment is actually owned by the Department of Space. And, these are the charges one has to pay to utilize the capacity.

So, in that sense, as I said, there is a huge opportunity out there but it’s not going to be there indefinitely. And, the sooner I wish we could tap into that, as India — better is for the industry in India, the users, for everybody.

Industry analysts say that satellite operators offer unaffordable pricing?

Globally, the disparity is not there. The reason is that a supply is restricted, and there’s more demand. And when you don’t have adequate supply, then the price goes up, and you can charge whatever you want. And then, you get the tag that satellite technology is an expensive technology. It’s not the case today, it’s artificial.

Do you also expect some private players to come to India and invest more? OneWeb and SpaceX, and others already have some plans.

There are many more players. Hughes for example had an investment proposal with the government since 2016 but hasn’t moved. We had actually proposed that we will build a high throughput satellite (HTS) to provide services in India.

The challenge is for a large country like India, you need more technologies – one technology cannot be adequate to serve all customers.

And you know, for a medium like satellite, will only essentially grow the availability of broadband services to regions that are currently outside the broadband map. And, then are other challenges of economic viability.

We have made a proposal that we will put up a high throughput satellite which will make broadband access possible for people mainly staying outside the cities/urban region, or the underserved or unserved regions of the country.

So, what projects are you looking at?

One that’s still a year or two years away, it’s a project which is into earth-orbiting satellites. And the objective is to basically provide coverage for affordable broadband access. But, I think the challenge is obviously working in the regulatory arena because that’s not something that has been announced as yet.

But, I think I can surely tell you that it (broadband) will be greatly beneficial to help improve availability, especially in unserved and underserved areas.

There are some security concerns around payload that foreign players carry, and can go unnoticed since there is no proper mechanism to scrutinise. Do you think this could be a national security threat?

If you want to work in any sovereign jurisdiction, India, or anywhere else, you have to go through the national agency and you have to secure what is known as ‘landing rights’. So, when you say that, I am going to allow foreign satellite operators, there are two ways of doing it.

One is that I could be a company incorporated in India, whether owned by Indians or owned by foreigners. Now, in that scenario, I could launch a satellite and operate a satellite but I will have to go through the national space agency, which is the Department of Space. So, there’s something known as MTTR — the telemetry and tracking station, that whatever happens on the satellite gets tracked through that centre.

Like that, in another instance could be that I am not an Indian incorporated company and I am a foreign company and I have a satellite in space that I wish to use for services in India. Then in that case I cannot activate the service without first getting regulatory approval to land that capacity in India. So, I have to put in the earth station, clear those frequencies and then the national agencies put their tracking and monitoring equipment so that any anti-national is then tracked and monitored, and not allowed.

What is the quantum of investment that you have made in India?

So, that is going on like that’s now an old proposal. At that time, it was around $500 million. But, now it is more than five years old. So, we have to see now how it might get impacted with the passage of time. And, depending on the new rules when they come.

Any roadmap for India, in terms of investment, headcount, going ahead? How do you want to focus on the Indian market?

The fact that we have submitted a proposal and the fact that we are waiting for this policy sort of bears testimony to the fact that we are looking at India as an option. But I think specifics will be hard to put upfront at this point in time until we see the fine print and what the detailed rules are like.