A national network in the sky
Published 11 October 2026
On June 19, 1981, the Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment, better known as APPLE, launched from Kourou on an Ariane vehicle. ISRO describes it as India's first indigenous experimental communications satellite. It weighed 670 kilograms and carried two C-band transponders. The spacecraft was built in two years with limited infrastructure in industrial sheds. Its launch into transfer orbit was followed by an orbit-raising manoeuvre using an ISRO apogee motor derived from the fourth-stage motor of SLV-3. Domestic engineering and a foreign launch service were combined in the same mission. The value of that combination was practical: it allowed an Indian-built experimental spacecraft to reach the orbit where its communications work could begin. isro.gov.in, APPLE
APPLE supplied experience with three-axis stabilization, orbit raising, the deployment of appendages and station keeping. These were parts of making a spacecraft perform as a communications platform, rather than merely reaching space. Its mission also included experiments in multiple-access systems, radio networking and computer interconnection. ISRO says the satellite was used for nearly two years. The work joined the stability of the spacecraft to the handling of communications through it. A transponder was useful only as part of a system that could keep the satellite in its intended position and organize access to its capacity. APPLE's two transponders and experimental purpose set a modest scale, but the mission developed the skills needed to manage a more permanent service. isro.gov.in, APPLE
The INSAT system turned that experimental work toward a national communications infrastructure. The first INSAT-1A mission failed in orbit, as ISRO's mission list records. INSAT-1B launched on August 30, 1983, and encountered a serious difficulty of its own: the solar array did not deploy promptly. Indian and Ford controllers succeeded in deploying it in mid-September. The satellite had taken its position at 74 degrees east in place of INSAT-1A, and full operational capability followed in October. The sequence was a reminder that owning and launching a satellite did not by itself produce a working service. Power, control and deployment had to succeed after launch before the communications payload could fulfil its purpose. isro.gov.in, Genesis isro.gov.in, Communication Satellites isro.gov.in, INSAT-1B
INSAT-1B continued operating into 1990, with all its 4,375 two-way voice or equivalent circuits in use, according to ISRO. The satellite also returned about 36,000 earth images. It belonged to a system that joined communications and other public applications rather than separating each function into an unrelated story. The circuit count describes a communications capability of that period. It cannot be translated into broadband customers or into a modern throughput figure without changing what is being measured. Its significance is clearer on its own terms: a difficult deployment had become sustained operation, and the capacity was being used. The national network had moved beyond an experiment with a short mission into an operating infrastructure. isro.gov.in, INSAT-1B
During the 1990s, the programme developed the INSAT and Indian Remote Sensing systems as two broad classes of space infrastructure. The communications mission list includes INSAT-2A in July 1992, INSAT-2B in July 1993, INSAT-2C in December 1995 followed by INSAT-2D in June 1997, which the record identifies as a failure in orbit. INSAT-2E launched in April 1999. The list contains progress and setbacks together. That record is more useful than a smooth account in which every addition succeeds. A satellite network needed repeated missions, continuing operations and replacement capacity. Its development was measured over years, with the possibility that a spacecraft would not provide the service intended for it even after reaching orbit. isro.gov.in, Genesis isro.gov.in, Communication Satellites
Alongside the spacecraft programme, India developed rules for the ground services using it. TRAI's retrospective account records recommendations in October 2000 for VSAT closed-user-group networks. A commercial licensee could organize several closed groups for subscribers, while a captive licensee could set up one group for its own use. The distinction organized access around the relationship among the users. A private network connecting a business's sites was not being treated as an open consumer internet service. These licensing categories help explain the institutional background to the later argument over public satellite broadband. Satellite links were already useful, but the permitted customer group and the service provided through them were defined by the licence. trai.gov.in, TRAI consultation paper, April 2026
In November 2001, TRAI recommended terms for INSAT's mobile reporting service. It was a one-way messaging system: the terminal transmitted through the satellite. The regulator treated it as a new value-added service and proposed no entry fee while the market developed, with a five-percent revenue-based licence fee going toward universal service. It also proposed a two-lakh-rupee bank guarantee to discourage applicants who did not begin service within six months. DoT introduced the licence in 2002. The combination addressed both adoption and seriousness of entry. A small developing service could receive a low initial barrier while still facing a commitment to start operating. That policy problem was present well before a mass-market satellite-broadband constellation sought Indian customers. trai.gov.in, TRAI consultation paper, April 2026
EDUSAT, also identified as GSAT-3, launched on September 20, 2004, on a GSLV vehicle. ISRO's mission table lists its application as communication and gives a launch mass of 1,950.5 kilograms. The mission's presence in that record shows the continued place of dedicated communications spacecraft within India's programme. It also places the infrastructure on a longer timeline than the rise of consumer satellite broadband. The country was already launching and operating communications assets through a sequence of missions. What would change with newer constellations was not the discovery that satellites could carry communication. The new contest concerned how a space network would be organized, what sort of service it could deliver and who would control access to it. isro.gov.in, Communication Satellites
DoT introduced the Unified Licensing regime in 2013, according to TRAI's account. It let an eligible company seek permissions for several kinds of service within one framework licence rather than obtain unrelated licences for each. But holding the framework did not authorize every listed service automatically. The operator still needed the relevant service authorizations. Satellite-based GMPCS, commercial closed-group VSAT and INSAT reporting were included in the structure. This distinction gives the term Unified Licence a practical limit. Unified did not mean unrestricted. The licence organized several permissions under one framework, while the scope of each authorization still determined what the company could offer. The regime also retained operational clearances and performance verification for satellite networks and equipment. trai.gov.in, TRAI consultation paper, April 2026
TRAI's January 2018 recommendations addressed communication aboard aircraft. It supported internet and mobile services in Indian airspace and proposed a separate in-flight provider category operating through an arrangement with an appropriately authorized Unified Licensee. A token annual fee of one rupee was suggested to promote adoption. The framework separated the provider arranging the onboard service from the wider licensed network supporting it. This was another form of partnership around a satellite-capable link. The one-rupee recommendation concerned the provider's authorization fee, not the price an airline would pay for equipment and a working service. Equipment, network capacity and commercial charges were separate from the token fee proposed for the authorization itself. trai.gov.in, TRAI consultation paper, April 2026
Two missions late in 2018 added another pair of communications spacecraft to that record. GSAT-29 launched on November 14 on a GSLV Mk III vehicle, with a listed mass of 3,423 kilograms. GSAT-11 followed on December 5 on an Ariane-5, at 5,854 kilograms. The missions again combined domestic space development with different launch routes. Their dates and launch vehicles describe how the assets reached orbit, rather than the retail services they might support. By this point, India's communications programme had a history of building capacity through large individual spacecraft. That established system was the background against which a very different kind of network, made from many satellites much closer to Earth, began to take shape. isro.gov.in, Communication Satellites
In December 2018, DoT issued Flight and Maritime Connectivity Rules. They covered authorization for wireless voice or data service on ships within Indian territorial waters and on aircraft within or above India and its territorial waters. The location of the service, rather than simply the location of the satellite, defined the domestic scope. A moving vessel or aircraft could use a space link while the communication remained subject to rules for the area in which it operated. The rules widened the visible forms of satellite service beyond fixed ground installations. They also showed why a single phrase such as satellite internet could cover activities with different operating environments, customers and authorization needs. trai.gov.in, TRAI consultation paper, April 2026