Reliance Jio, Amazon Leo spar over proposed satellite network framework

Published 2 July 2026 · finance

Telecom operator Reliance Jio and Amazon Leo have locked horns over the government’s proposed satellite communication network (SCN) framework, with spectrum ownership emerging as a

Telecom operator Reliance Jio and Amazon Leo have locked horns over the government’s proposed satellite communication network (SCN) framework, with spectrum ownership emerging as a key source of disagreement. The framework seeks to allow satellite companies to act as infrastructure providers by supplying capacity to telecom and internet providers. This, in effect, creates a new category of companies that would operate satellite communication networks, including ground stations. Licensed telecom and satellite internet service providers would then use this infrastructure to deliver satellite internet services to users. Jio has opposed granting spectrum rights to these infrastructure providers, arguing that only licensed telecom operators should hold spectrum through auctions. Also Read | Jio Platforms bucks a long-running IPO trend On Thursday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) held an industry discussion on the proposed framework for satellite communication network authorization and related spectrum terms. This framework is different from the licences currently held by companies such as Elon Musk's Starlink, OneWeb and Jio Satellite, which are used to roll out satellite internet services. Reliance Jio argued that spectrum for satellite communication network should be auctioned. “The spectrum should be assigned only to the authorized access service providers and no other entity including the proposed SCN entity should hold any right to use spectrum,” U.K. Shrivastava, president of regulatory affairs at Reliance Jio, said. Shrivastava argued that a separate SCN category is unnecessary and a separation between service and network layers already exists. He noted that introducing an SCN provider would create a regulatory imbalance and be detrimental to the sector's orderly growth.

Amazon Leo, which is currently in the fray to obtain a full-fledged authorisation from the government to provide satellite internet services in the country, opposed any auctions of such spectrum. “The feeder link spectrum should be held by the SCN entity and the user link spectrum should be held by the partnering entity,” said Faheem Shaikh, lead, licensing & regulatory affairs – South Asia at Amazon Leo, during the Trai consultation. Under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, the government has decided to administratively allocate satellite communication spectrum without auctions. According to Shaikh, restricting ground segment spectrum assignment to Indian service providers would lock the infrastructure to domestic use cases only. “SCN entities with global constellations would lose their ability to serve neighboring countries from Indian gateways which we already have a policy for,” Shaikh said, adding that there are landlocked countries like Nepal and Bhutan that depend on India or China for internet connectivity, and the government should allow SCN to provide internet breakout through Indian gateways for them. “If this would be a bottleneck, we fear a lot of the investment that is supposed to come in the ground infrastructure in India might shift to Bangladesh, which has a lot of easy policy with a local internet breakout,” he said. To be sure, internet breakout refers to the point where internet traffic enters or leaves a country to reach the global network. For countries like Nepal or Bhutan, internet breakout happens through another country’s infrastructure (like India or China), which carries their data to global networks.