The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday released a consultation paper on ‘Licensing Framework for Establishing Satellite Earth Station Gateway’ seeking stakeholders’ inputs on various issues.

TRAI has floated this paper on request from the Department of Telecoms (DoT), which said that the current licensing framework for satellite services has limitations with respect to proposed satellite gateway(s) operations as there are no provisions regarding usage of gateway by service provider established by a satellite constellation operator.

Considering the constraints of the existing provisions in respect of proposed satellite gateway(s) operations, DoT stated there was a need for a suitable licensing framework and requested TRAI to examine all the factors and make recommendations on the licensing framework relevant for LEO/MEO/HTS systems.

The deadline for submissions is December 13, 2021.

Some of the issues raised by TRAI in the consultation paper include the following:

1. Whether there is a need to have a specific license for establishing satellite earth station gateway in India for the purpose of providing satellite-based resources to service licensees?
2. What kind of license/permission should be envisaged for establishing gateways in India?
3. Whether such an earth station license should be made available to the satellite operator or its subsidiary or any entity having a tie- up with the satellite operator?
4. What mechanism/framework should be put in place to regulate the access to satellite transponder capacity and satellite based resources of a satellite operator/earth station licensee by the service licensees so as to get the resources in a time-bound, transparent, fair and non-discriminatory manner?
5. Whether the earth station licensee should be permitted to install baseband equipment also for providing satellite bandwidth to the service licensees as per need?
6. What amendments will be required to be made in the existing terms and conditions of the relevant service authorizations of Unified License, DTH license/teleport permission to enable the service licensee to connect to the satellite earth station gateways established by earth station licensee/service licensee, for obtaining and using the satellite transponder bandwidth and satellite-based resources?
7. Whether the sharing of earth station among the licensees (between proposed earth station licensee and service licensee and among service licensees) should be permitted?

8. What should be the methodology for the assignment of spectrum for establishing satellite earth station?
9. What should be the charging mechanism for the spectrum assigned to the satellite earth station licensee?