ISpA urges Govt to subsidize satellite broadband services

The Indian Space Association, or ISpA, the newly-launched commercial space body, has said that the government should seek to introduce a subsidy for satellite broadband services.

ISpA Seeks Satcom Subsidy

In essence, the ISpA had suggested using the USOF and use satcom as a support measure to the BharatNet project. The ambitious project to connect every village of the country with broadband access, the government has so far connected 180,000 of the 250,000 gram panchayats.

Jayant Patil, ISpA Chairman, told ETTelecom, "the government is rolling out BharatNet that also has a cost to rollout. But the government looks at this as a national priority to be able to digitally connect people for education and health purposes in each village of the country. And if the government so feels, it would like to perhaps use the USOF subsidy to roll out the same connectivity using satellite. That's a wonderful opportunity.  The aim of the government will remain the same".

Launched in 2002, the Universal Service Obligation Fund, or USOF, represents a corpus of Rs. 55,000 crore. The government had set it up to promote connectivity; using it for subsidizing satcom services does serve that purpose.

Patil added that even though the initial investment for satcom remains high, the connectivity it offers remains unparalleled. Satcom has the capacity to cover every square meter of the country, and satcos are aware of the same.

Notably, this move won't be unique by any means; Germany had introduced a similar subsidy for Starlink months ago. At the end of May, the German transport ministry had announced a subsidy of up to €500 to each household.

Handelsblatt, a daily, had reported that the government will subsidize the purchase of Starlink dishes and similar service providers with grants. However, the transport ministry also mentioned that the grant will not cover monthly internet usage costs; it will only limit itself to covering infrastructure costs.