Industrialist Sunil Bharti Mittal, who leads Bharti Airtel, said on Wednesday that the latest satellite communication protocol “SAT-G” would usher in a new era of connectivity. “Just like 4G, 5G, and 6G in the future, we will now have one more technology in our mix, i.e. SAT-G,” stated the Founder-Chairman of Bharti Enterprises. “Soon customers will be able to carry their mobiles to the remotest part of the world, with them in the skies and blue oceans.”
This came on the heels of Ambani-led Reliance Industries announcing that its digital services arm Jio Platforms inked a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to offer Starlink broadband internet services to its customers in India. A day earlier, Bharti Airtel also announced its agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink services in the country. The two leading telecom giants look to fight it out in the satcom space, but Musk’s space company is yet to receive any authorisation to sell Starlink in India.
With “seamless global connectivity” being the buzzword nowadays, let us explore how satellite communication services (satcom or ‘SAT-G’) work and how it helps improve connectivity.
Starlink uses a network of small satellites to create a “megaconstellation” that go around the planet in a low Earth orbit (LEO)—the area of space below an altitude of 2,000km. It sheds the use of the age-old cable technology to instead use something that has been around for a little while—radiowave connectivity using satellites.
Starlink satellites provide internet and other related services by communicating with the earth via radiowaves. The proprietary tech by SpaceX allows seamless communication between the satellites, as well.
Starlink offers Roam plans that lets you access services even in vehicles travelling up to 160kmph | Starlink/SpaceX
The official instructions on the Starlink customer portal are fairly simple, with two steps that “work in either order”. One, plug it in. Two, Point at sky. The only requirement it states is that Starlink requires an unobstructed view of the sky. According to SpaceX, the Starlink app (for both Android and iOS) would help the customer determine the best install location.
However, this is for fixed locations (houses, offices, etc.), land mobility (atop cars, buses, trains), and maritime (on rigs and yachts and ships) that provide you with a service similar to a broadband connection. But is there something similar to the SIM technology, like 5G? There is, and SpaceX calls it Starlink Direct to Cell service.
Starlink Direct to Cell could be what Mittal referred to as SAT-G, with uninterrupted satellite-based cellular service to your smartphone. Currently, this tech is commercially available in the United States and New Zealand, enabling satellite messaging service for 4G LTE mobile phones, according to SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s space company recently scaled the Direct to Cell network big time, by launching a constellation of more than 400 satellites. In total, there are now a little over 7,000 Starlink satellites orbitting the planet. “The availability of the commercial messaging service is the first step in our vision of eliminating mobile dead zones and providing ubiquitous global connectivity using satellite-to-mobile technology,” SpaceX said in a statement.
The recent use of Starlink Direct to Cell service came during Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the Los Angeles wildfires in the US. FCC granted SpaceX special authority to enable the services in the impacted regions in partnership with T-Mobile. Soon, T-Mobile subscribers in the impacted regions were able to send messages through Starlink Direct to Cell satellites when outside of terrestrial coverage. It also allowed emergency alerts to be transmitted to wireless subscribers who were within satellite coverage.
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By November last year, the FCC approved Starlink Direct to Cell commercial service within the US with T-Mobile. In New Zealand, it partnered with One NZ. Adding India to the list significantly improves Starlink connectivity, especially with market leaders Airtel and Jio inking deals with SpaceX.
“As we look ahead, we are focused on increasing our satellite-to-mobile coverage through an expanded global rollout, providing additional support for IoT devices, data, and voice to come,” stated SpaceX. The introduction of ‘Sat-G’ is another disruptive move in the Indian market.
Along with that, both Jio and Airtel announced that they look to sell Starlink equipment in the country through its outlets. This could mean that any Starlink subscriber could buy a handy satellite dish (which resembles a small DTH dish, but with linear edges), mount it on their vehicle or house, and link up to get satcom internet services. All they have to do is: One, plug it in. Two, Point at sky.
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