Tata’s Nelco seeks to offer satellite broadband services

Tata Group company Nelco has applied for the global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) licence, becoming the fourth company in India to seek the licence for launching broadband-fromspace services, signalling heightened interest in a nascent segment but with significant growth potential.

So far, the government has given the licences to Bharti Group-backed OneWeb and Reliance Jio Infocomm’s satellite arm while the application of Elon Musk-owned SpaceX is under process.

The department of telecommunications (DoT), however, has sought more details from Nelco as to how it plans to provide satellite communication services in India.


Nelco in partnership with Canada’s Telesat have done a trial but the company has not mentioned in its application as to how it will offer services through the partnership.

“Nelco has applied for a GMPCS licence, which will enable it to offer newer services in the future. The questions raised by the department are part of a routine process of evaluating any new licence application, which is being addressed by the company,” PJ Nath, managing director, Nelco, told ET.

Nath further said Nelco had conducted a demonstration of high-speed broadband connectivity using Telesat’s low earth orbit (LEO) satellite, which is in orbit. The demonstrations were conducted in May 2022, during which high speed connectivity with fibre like latency was showcased to over 50 representatives from enterprise and telecom companies and government departments.