Allocation is written into law

Published 11 October 2026

The Telecommunications Act received presidential assent on December 24. Its spectrum provisions defined the government's role as owner on behalf of the people and required anyone intending to use spectrum to obtain an assignment. The Act also allowed the government to prescribe conditions including the frequency range, pricing method, charges, duration and procedure. Those provisions made an assignment a structured permission, rather than merely an announcement that a band could be used. The legal text distinguished the method of selecting an assignee from the conditions governing that assignee's use. Both would matter for satellite operators seeking a path from authorized capacity to a functioning commercial network. egazette.gov.in, Gazette of India notification, December 24, 2023

Section Four set auctions as the general rule for spectrum assignment, with an exception for entries in the First Schedule, which were to use an administrative process. The Act defined that process as assignment without an auction. It did not define it as assignment without payment or conditions. The government retained powers to prescribe prices, fees and other terms. It did not settle what an operator would pay, how interference would be managed or what obligations accompanied the rights. Those questions remained capable of shaping the economics of a service even without a competitive bidding process. egazette.gov.in, Gazette of India notification, December 24, 2023

The government could amend the First Schedule by notification for public-interest reasons, government functions, or cases in which technical or economic reasons made auctions unsuitable. The notification had to be laid before both Houses of Parliament. The text therefore combined a default method, specified exceptions and a process for changing the exceptions. It also dealt separately with the continuity of existing assignments. What the Act did not provide was a particular Indian consumer tariff for a satellite service or a completed frequency assignment to a named constellation. It supplied the legal structure within which those later operational and pricing decisions would be made. The move from legislation to service still required decisions applying the framework. egazette.gov.in, Gazette of India notification, December 24, 2023

The Act also gave the government tools beyond choosing an auction or an administrative process. It distinguished harmonisation, meaning a rearrangement of a frequency range, from re-farming, meaning its repurposing for a different use. Both were subject to prescribed terms. Section Six allowed flexible, liberalised and technologically neutral spectrum use, again under conditions and possible charges. The legal framework therefore contemplated that the use of frequencies could change as networks changed. That mattered to an industry arguing about convergence between terrestrial and satellite systems. Technology neutrality was not a declaration that any operator could transmit on any frequency it wished. It was a power through which the government could enable different uses under specified terms. A provider's existing assignment and the changing capabilities of its equipment still had to be read together with the conditions governing that assignment. egazette.gov.in, Gazette of India notification, December 24, 2023

Another provision allowed secondary assignments of spectrum already held by a primary assignee, provided the additional use did not cause harmful interference to the primary use. The government could also act against an assignment left unused for insufficient reasons, after giving the assignee a reasonable opportunity to be heard. Sharing and utilization thus appeared inside the statute itself, rather than only in an operator's preferred business model. The interests were distinct: a new user might be able to use the same resource, while the existing user needed protection from harmful interference. An assignee could not treat an unused right as entirely beyond review. These provisions did not decide whether any particular Starlink or Jio frequency arrangement met the conditions. They defined powers and limits relevant to the later argument over how an assigned resource could be shared, retained or withdrawn. egazette.gov.in, Gazette of India notification, December 24, 2023