Intelsat to ‘soon’ set up wholly-owned entity in India to comply with space policy: Gaurav Kharod, APAC head

NEW DELHI: Intelsat will set up a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary in India and will transfer its assets serving the country’s customers to this entity to comply with the space policy, said a senior executive of the integrated satellite and terrestrial network operator.

Intelsat is in the process of being acquired by Luxembourg-based satcom firm SES in a $3-billion deal. SES, in turn, has a 49:52 joint venture with Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms (JPL) to offer satcom services in the India market.

“All of our five satellites existing today over Indian and providing services to our customers will be brought, along with the business, customers, and assets such as spectrum will be brought under the Indian entity. We will have to apply for a foreign direct investment (FDI) plan,” Gaurav Kharod, Head of Intelsat in Asia Pacific, told ETSatcom exclusively in an interview.

Intelsat would be able to set up the Indian subsidiary once the FDI application has been approved by the space regulator, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Center (IN-SPACe), he added. "We are getting very close to submitting the FDI application."

“That subsidiary will own all the business, as well as, the ground infrastructure, the customers, the employees, (which are) the assets in this case,” Kharod said.

The company, however, has not divulged further details.

The Centre, through the Indian Space Policy 2023, has allowed non-governmental entities (NGEs) to undertake end-to-end activities in the space sector.

The wide-ranging space policy implementation guidelines and procedures released by the IN-SPACe in May state that a non-Indian satellite/satellite constellation requires authorisation through an Indian entity to provide its capacity to users for communication services in the country’s territory. These satellites/constellations can either use Indian orbital resources or non-Indian orbital resources.

The company has an administrative headquarters in Virginia, USA. Intelsat also has offices in South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Singapore, Beijing (China), Japan, Australia, the UK, France, and Luxembourg.

Intelsat has 125 employees in India, situated at its office in Delhi and Chennai. The latter is the base of engineers for developing software, commercial aviation services, and 24x7 network operations centre (NOC) support.

“Over the next 12 months, Intelsat will become ‘Indianised’ in line with what is expected from the space policy. We have to ensure that all of the infrastructure we have created, the people, the offices, and the assets, are regularised and are in compliance,” the executive said.

While there is a local reporting structure in India, the employees ultimately report to the US headquarters. Kharod leads the India organisation.

He said Intelsat has invested close to $5 million of capital expenditure (CapEX) in India to establish teleport infrastructure with partners with Tata’s Nelco and Cloudcast Digital Limited for commercial aviation and maritime communications.

The top executive stated that the Telecommunications Act 2023 has laid to rest any discussions around the auction of satellite spectrum.

To be sure, while the Telecommunications Act states that spectrum for satcom, including global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) license holders, must be given administratively, the modalities have not yet been clarified.

Intelsat, Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, a Jio unit, among others, are vying for the lucrative yet nascent satcom market in India. An Indian Space Association (ISpA) and EY report has predicted that India’s space economy is set to expand to $13 billion by 2025, recording a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6% from nearly $9.6 billion in 2020.