Mittal says India must hold the satellite 'kill switch' ; warns against reliance on one company

Bharti Airtel Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said India must keep control of the kill switch for satellite communications on its own soil as the government weighs security conditions that will decide when satellite broadband goes liveThe kill switch as we call it should not be sitting somewhere else Mittal said in an interview with PTI marking Bharti Enterprises 50th year India must have control over its own space destinyHe did not name a company in that remarkThe kill switch is the ability to cut off throttle or restrict a satellite networks service whether for a single terminal a region or an entire country from the operators control systems and ground gateways In satellite broadband user terminals connect to satellites which relay traffic to ground stations and then to the internet so whoever runs those control and gateway systems can in principle disable users or reroute their dataGovernments see it as a security tool It would let them shut down service quickly in a conflict during a security threat or to enforce lawful orders and it would let them monitor and intercept trafficThe implications cut both ways If the switch sits with a foreign operator or abroad a countrys military emergency and civilian users can lose connectivity because of a decision made elsewhere which Mittal calls losing control of its own space destinyIf it sits with the government that same power can be used to cut off access in national emergencies or for strategic reasonsIt is for these reasons that security clearances incountry gateways and monitoring requirements will shape who can launch satellite broadband in India and how fastMittal pointed to Ukraine saying that if Ukraine is using Starlink its also using OneWeb nowLast month Ukraine accused Elon Musks SpaceX of undermining the countrys ability to defend itself by cutting connectivity speeds disrupting military operations Those restrictions rendered some Ukrainian strike and interceptor drones virtually unusableWhether the governments scrutiny of satellite operators is justified Mittal said it is He argued that warfare is moving to space Whether its drone or its cyber issues or indeed guided missiles and all theyre all going to be managed from space he saidEverybody in the world needs to have control over its security he said There India will need to have guardrails Itll need to secure itselfHe said India should not lean on a single provider Importantly it may need to have different players You cant just depend on one country or one company he said India must also ensure the security of the apparatus of the equipment the communications coming down into the ground to be monitored and everything should be routed through India he addedHe said Eutelsat OneWeb is building a secure European communications network in which he said the EU is spending 1415 billion euros and that this has drawn attention to the companyMittal said OneWebs service already works in India The government occasionally uses their terminals for emergency services he saidAs an example he said economic adviser Sanjeev Sanyal took a terminal on a boat trip to OmanHe was streaming all the way through Mittal said It is right now fully available We can just switch it on soonWe were the first licence given by the government We have satisfied all their needs and we just now wait for their signal he said I still hope well get the first approvalThree companies hold satellite communications licences in India Jio OneWeb and Starlink The government has said all three operators hold provisional spectrum and are at a similar stage and that final launch depends on security clearanceOn the spectrum debate Mittal said satellite spectrum is shared Everybody dips into the same spectrum he said with operators at different orbital heights having to coordinate He said OneWeb has the highest priority on the KU band and therefore others have to coordinate with us and that the regulators understand the debateMittal said satellite will not replace mobile networks For the foreseeable future it will remain complementary Its very expensive Satellites need to be replaced every five six years he said Where there is fibre radio cannot compete with it Where there is a radio satellite cannot compete with it But together all of them will coexistHe said the case for satellite is coverage There are still dark spots in deep rural hinterlands in the forests in the hills mountains in the high seas in the ocean and of course in the air he saidSatellite links would connect a phone user in the mountains with no signal he addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever