Good Morning Dear MMS Reader,
If, like me, you thought that the days of disruptive innovation in Indian telecom are over—given that it is now, for all intents and purposes, a boring duopoly between Reliance Jio and Airtel—then you're wrong! Did you know, for instance, that Broadband India Forum, an association of technology players like Google, Hughes, etc., and the Cellular Operators Association of India are up in arms against Elon Musk’s SpaceX? Because they believe that Musk's strategy of collecting a mere US$100 deposit (Rs 7,200 in India) for those who want a “priority” slot when SpaceX launches its satellite-based broadband access globally is a “backdoor” to both enter the Indian market and to disrupt it by subsidising the true cost (which they estimate at US$3,000).
Did you know that the founder and chairman of Bharti Airtel, has spent over US$1 billion of his personal wealth to buy a majority stake in OneWeb, a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites that plans to offer broadband access globally? By the way, SpaceX is an LEO player too.
Normally Indian telecom’s disruptor-in-chief, Reliance Jio is uncharacteristically silent and bereft of a strategy for now. It believed its all-4G mobile network would be the perfect platform for India to transition to 5G. But then along came this joker in the form of LEO-based satellite broadband, which is being accepted and ratified by the world telecom standard body for use as 5G.
Jio doesn’t have a horse in this race.
One of its key investors, Facebook, did though. But then Facebook sold its LEO business to Jio’s arch-nemesis in India, Amazon. If you’re thinking satellite broadband is still a pipe dream, consider the rumours about Apple’s next iPhone having in-built satellite communication capabilities. Even if that rumour doesn’t fructify into reality this month (when Apple unveils its latest iPhone models), next year won’t be that far away.
There’s a new game in disruption town, and it's called satellite broadband. And trust me, you won’t read a better story on it than by www.multimediastudio.net
