Jio vs SpaceX vs OneWeb! Mukesh Ambani takes on Elon Musk, Sunil Mittal
The conglomerate helmed by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, is moving to provide to provide satellite broadband connectivity, muscling into a segment where billionaires Sunil Mittal’s OneWeb and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have ambitious plans. Jio Platforms Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of listed Reliance Industries Ltd., entered into a joint venture with Luxembourg-based SES to “deliver the next generation scalable and affordable broadband services in India leveraging satellite technology,” according to an exchange filing Monday. Jio Platforms will own 51% in the newly-created Jio Space Technology Ltd., with SES holding the rest.
The joint venture “will use multi-orbit space networks,” combining geostationary and medium earth orbit satellite constellations that can deliver multi-gigabit internet capacity to companies, retail users as well as the back-end of wireless networks across India and the neighboring regions, according to the statement.
Satellite broadband was the only big missing link in Reliance’s massive telecom infrastructure including a deep optic fiber footprint across India, which enabled it to become the country’s largest mobile operator within a few years of its disruptive entry in 2016. While India is the world’s second-largest wireless market, it had only 622 million active internet users in 2020, according to Kantar consultancy, making it a key growth market.
Jio will be the anchor customer of the joint venture with a “multi-year capacity purchase agreement” at a total contract value of $100 million, it said in the statement.
A Reliance spokesperson didn’t immediately comment if Jio Space Technology will also consider low-Earth orbit, or LEO, satellites -- a category that provides rapid data transmission, or
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
