The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) has authorised the Eutelsat OneWeb constellation to enable the provisioning of its capacity in India for providing communication services.
M/s OneWeb India Communication Private Limited (OneWeb India) is the first company that has been authorised by IN-SPACe to enable the provisioning of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation capacity in the country.
OneWeb India aims to provide internet services to the rural and unconnected areas and territorial waters of India on a 24 x 7 basis.
The Eutelsat OneWeb is a global constellation with 648 satellites (including spares) orbiting Earth in circular polar orbits at 1200 km altitude and shall provide about 21 Gbps throughput over India.
“IN-SPACe authorisation to the Eutelsat OneWeb constellation has a validity period of five years and is subject to the assignment of the spectrum by the Department of Telecommunication for both the gateways and user terminal operations, and other requisite regulating licenses and approvals in this regard,”IN-SPACe said.
IN-SPACe, which is an autonomous nodal agency under the Department of Space to promote, enable, authorise and supervise non-government entities to undertake space activities, added that it believes that these new birds in the sky shall blanket India with low latency, high throughput capacity and shall contribute towards bridging the digital divide in the urban and rural/remote India.
OneWeb India said that this development adds to Eutelsat OneWeb’s existing strong position in the Indian market, where OneWeb India already holds the necessary licences from the Department of Telecommunications to provide broadband services using satellite connectivity.
“The business has also obtained in principle approval to establish and operate two gateways in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, which would secure the provision of vital high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity to customers across India, once services are rolled out,” it said.
