Indian telecom industry has been abuzz with Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio’s agreements with SpaceX to distribute Starlink’s Satellite communications (Satcom) services in India. It was perceived as a green signal to the Elon Musk-owned company to start Satcom services in India. But Starlink still has many milestones to cross. In an exclusive interview with businessline, Minister of Telecommunications, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said the government has a very clear proforma which everyone needs to abide by. The licence will be given only after these processes are complete. On the fate of the debt-ridden Vodafone-Idea, Scindia said every company has to comply with the rules but there must be a healthy competition in the telecom market. Excerpts from the interview:
Is the partnership of two largest telecom players with Starlink a green signal to Elon Musk’s company? What will be the price of spectrum… will it be auctioned or given administratively?
That’s a process that is carried out between any company and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). There is a very clear proforma (application process). As you are aware, two licences have already been given out to Reliance and OneWeb… That’s a very clear proforma, which everyone needs to abide by and as soon as that is done, the licence will be given out. As far as spectrum is concerned, the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) is exercising its mind on the pricing of the spectrum that will be administratively assigned as per the Telecom Act. When TRAI comes out with its recommendations, then the spectrum pricing will be based on that. That is for the Regulator to decide.
BSNL’s revenues have turned positive. How soon can we see BSNL’s 4G services in the country?
BSNL has turned a net profit for the first time on a quarterly basis after 17 years. Last time that happened was in 2007. This time around, we have seen not only a net profit for the quarter, but a nine per cent growth if you compare quarter three (Q3) 2023-24 with Q3 2024-25 in income. We have seen an 18 per cent reduction in costs, and a three time multiple in EBITDA. EBITDA (operating profit) was ₹558 crore in in Q3 of 2023-24. It is now close to ₹1,465 crore in Q3 of 2024-25. On a bottom line basis, we have gone from a loss of ₹1,250 crore in Q3 of last year to a profit of ₹262 crore in Q3 of this year. If you look at the nine-month basis, we have increased operating profit by 10 per cent over last year’s full 12 months. Last year’s full 12 months was ₹2,100 crore, but this year’s nine-month alone is ₹2,400 crore (₹2,369 crore to be precise). On a loss basis, last year’s full 12 month loss was ₹5,371 crore, and this year’s nine month loss, we have narrowed to ₹2,500 crore. So, it’s been a huge turnaround — increase in top-line of the business, cutting off costs, as well as improvement of operating profit — and improvement of bottom-line considering that you are putting in a huge amount of capex. We have a very aggressive plan of close to about one lakh sites to be put up on 4G, for which, as on date, we have put up close to about 89,000 sites that have been installed. Our 4G network is already up and running for close to about 1.8 crore customers and we are looking forward to growing that. The Prime Minister has been very supportive of pushing BSNL ahead and we have invested closed to ₹20,000 crore for 4G initiative. BSNL is also launching new services in the market, to curb spam to free Wi-Fi to multiple mobile apps/service friendly apps so that we go down the path of value-added services as well. Also, data consumption has grown 21 times to almost about 3 petabytes per day due to our enhanced coverage.
Any tentative date for the launch of 5G services now from BSNL?
We will start moving to 5G once 4G’s one-lakh towers have been set up. I am looking at some time in June when we will supplement the 4G towers to be able to supply 5G services as well. We need to add an additional BTS base transceiver stations, add some more media and there is some software needed to convert it to 5G. That will start as soon as the 4G rollout is complete. The biggest thing is that we are today atmanirbhar in telecom and this is also the vision of the Prime Minister. The PM insisted that India has to create its own telecom stack. People thought that was a dream, but the PM always changes and transforms challenges into opportunities. There were only four countries that have been able to achieve this in the world: China, South Korea, Finland and Sweden. We are today the only fifth country in the world to have our own indigenous 4G telecom stack. The core is produced by a government company, DOT; the RAN is produced by Tejas, a private company owned by the Tatas, the system integrator is TCS (again a Tata company). Therefore, it is a fully organic, fully indigenous.
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There were talks of exporting these equipment to other countries…
Let us first finish the one-lakh towers rollout. Let’s also start moving to 5G, and then we will also look at export opportunities.
BharatNet is one of the key projects of the Modi government. What is the status on connectivity of villages under that? When will we be able to see complete connectivity of all the panchayats and villages?
BharatNet is a very ambitious programme which will ensure connectivity across the length and breadth of the country. Through optical fiber technology (OFC) broadband, BharatNet I and II, we have already connected 2,14,000 gram panchayats with a capital allocation of ₹42,000 crore and laid close to 6,92,000 km of OFC. Amended BharatNet is an even more ambitious programme where we will connect the balance 56,000 gram panchayats and, and we will connect the balance 3.80 lakh villages in India, based on demand. It is the largest funded connectivity scheme in the world: $16.1 billion (₹1.39 lakh crore) is being spent on this, which will cover not only capex, but also opex for 10 years, 16 packages have been tendered out; six have been already been awarded, agreements were being signed. So, they are on execution mode and five are in work in-progress.
What will be the fate of Vodafone-Idea now? It is not paying its dues to the government and is also under pressure from other players. Would the government step in to help the company?
We have a 23 per cent stake in Vodafone. Based on whatever the rules of the game are, every company has to comply with those rules going forward. It is a private sector company… I am not in charge of Jio, Airtel or Vodafone, so they have to comply with all the rules. The Government of India believes that there must be healthy a competition in the telecom market and there are a very few markets in the world that have four players. India is one such vibrant market.
DoT had set up pilots for 5G use cases across various government departments. It’s been more than a year now so what has been the outcome?
We are aggregating and seeing what their results are. We have also set up two 5G testbeds in IIT-Chennai, and are further exploring so that soon, they can be deployed. Our RAN is from Tejas and now CDOT is also producing them. It is working completely fine.
Adani has not rolled out private 5G services yet,. Will there be any penalties?
Again, this is a private sector company and they will have to comply with the rules. If they don’t, then whatever the rules specify, those penalties will be put in place.
