Satcom Players Say No to Sharing 28 GHz Band with Telcos

Satcom providers Hughes Network Systems, Inmarsat and Viasat have urged Indian authorities not to allocate half of 28 GHz spectrum to telcos for 5G. The companies said that such as move will impact their throughput and geographical reach.

Satcom to Be Another Spanner in the Works for 5G in India?

Currently the gold standard of 5G spectrum, the satellite players exclusively use the 28 GHz spectrum currently. However, telcos have also repeatedly asked for this particular spectrum band. The band is very efficient for 5G as well and will help reduce costs and make it affordable.

However, satcom companies think that sharing anything beyond 500 MHz in this mmWave band will prove detrimental. As such, they have reached out to DoT Secy Anshu Prakash.

K Krishna, VP and CTO, Hughes Communications India, said, “we did meet the DoT secretary on this spectrum when we learnt that it was being decided to give away 50% of these valuable airwaves for 5G”.

He added, “this spectrum can’t be suddenly taken away as that will certainly hurt satellite interests”.

Anil Prakash, DG, SIA-India, who was present in the meeting with the DoT secretary, said ITU had “twice rejected” designating any portion of the 28 GHz band for 5G. Slicing off this spectrum will rapidly reduce the serving capacity of satellite systems, he said.

Every satcom player from Starlink to Project Kuiper from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are likely to use this band. Losing half of this band will mean that they won't be able to fully realize the potential of their services in India. However, not allocating the band to telcos means that 5G will not remain affordable. This will definitely affect India's long term plans of becoming a $1 Trillion Digital Economy.

It all comes down to what the government deems to be in the best interests of the country.