Elon Musk has criticized rival billionaire and Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani's lobbying efforts for the auction route.
According to Reuters, Starlink's boss called India’s move to auction satellite broadband spectrum “unprecedented,” arguing that India should follow the global standards and directly allot the satellite internet licenses.
Meanwhile, Ambani's Reliance said that an auction is necessary to ensure fairness, stressing that otherwise, foreign firms could come in completion of the Indian telecom players by offering voice and data services.
The reaction of the tech giant came after the Reuters’ Sunday, October 13, 2024, report which claimed that Ambani's Reliance has raised the objection that India’s telecom regulators have made a decision regarding satellite internet spectrum allocation in a rush without asking for feedback from the industry and asked to begin the consultation process all over again.
Tesla's owner responded to the report with a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). He wrote that if the decision to auction is made after Reliance lobbying it “would be unprecedented.”
Moreover, later on Monday, while referring to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized UN agency for digital technology, he wrote, “This spectrum was long designated by the ITU as shared spectrum for satellites.”
To note, India is a member of ITU and has signed a treaty regarding the regulations of satellite spectrum which advocates that allocation is a “limited natural resource” and must be done "rationally, efficiently and economically."
