The Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) has called for uniform regulatory treatment of satellite and terrestrial telecom providers, arguing that similar services must be governed by the same legal, economic, and tax frameworks. GSMA’s newly appointed Director General, Vivek Badrinath, emphasised that such parity is not merely a commercial requirement but an ethical imperative.
“It is important for the quality of business that there should be fairness in the rules. If you’re providing similar services, you should have the same rules. Suppose you’re providing telecom-type services to customers. In that case, there’s no reason for mobile operators to have a more difficult set of hurdles, taxation and economic and legal conditions than satellite operators,” Badrinath told Moneycontrol in an interview. “Same service, same rules should be an ethical principle—it’s linked to the level playing field in business matters.”
COAI’s Stance on Satcom Recommendations
His remarks come amid escalating tensions in India’s telecom industry over proposed regulatory norms for satellite spectrum pricing. In a recent letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)—representing Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea—strongly objected to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendation of charging satellite operators 4 percent of adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
Calling the move “non-transparent based on non-justifiable assumption rather than factual data,” COAI told DoT secretary Neeraj Mittal that the regulator’s recommendations were not only inequitable but could also undermine the principles of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, and distort market competition.
While recognising the potential of satellite communication in remote areas and disaster recovery, Badrinath cautioned against overestimating its impact on digital inclusion. “Satellite technologies are still today a more expensive way of providing services than terrestrial solutions. So they will not solve the issue of the usage gap, because it is typically linked to the affordability of the device and service.”
Indian Telecom Sector in Reasonable Health
However, he emphasised the importance of ensuring that both satellite and terrestrial networks thrive and develop fairly. According to the report, GSMA believes India’s telecom sector is in “reasonable health” and the market structure enables investment despite low tariffs.
The Indian market is highly buoyant from a demand and technology adoption perspective, he said. “We’ve got some significant players, and the market structure allows operators to invest there…that’s a positive. Not all regions of the world have that market structure, and I think India has a chance of having a functional market structure.”
He pointed out that Vodafone Idea faces challenges related to AGR and other issues, but noted, “If you look at Airtel and Reliance Jio, they have invested in these technologies very actively…it shows a reasonable health of the sector and you see 5G adoption going up fast.”
Fair Share Debate
The GSMA also lent support to Indian telecom operators’ call for a “fair share” contribution from over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix, Google, and Meta.
Badrinath clarified that the debate should not be framed as “us versus them”—between telecom operators and OTT platforms—but rather as a collaborative effort to sustain the digital ecosystem.
He emphasised that mobile operators bear around 85 percent of the infrastructure investment enabling digital access, while OTT firms contribute mainly through server deployments and international links.
“…the investment requirements to cover the population and country with the complexity that India has certainly warrants a debate on, how can we ensure that there’s enough money in the ecosystem… India is considering this subject like other countries in Europe and Brazil, and I think rightly so, because the Indian population certainly is a big consumer of OTT content,” he added, according to the report.
The GSMA represents mobile network operators and the broader mobile ecosystem globally.
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