New Delhi, 28 July

Billionaire Elon Musk-led satellite communication services provider Starlink can have only 20 lakh connections in India, Union Minister Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said on Monday, playing down the threat to state-run BSNL and other telecom players.

The Minister of State for Telecom was speaking on the sidelines of a review meeting of BSNL here.

"Starlink can have only 20 lakh customers in India and offer up to 200 Mbps speed. That won't affect telecom services," the minister said.

Satcom services are expected to target rural and remote areas where BSNL is known to have a significant presence.

A government official mentioned that the limit on Starlink connections is due to its existing capacity.

The minister said that the upfront cost for satcom services will be too high and the monthly cost may be around Rs 3,000.

The minister also said that BSNL 4G rollout is complete and it does not plan to increase tariffs as of now.

"We want market first. There are no tariff hikes planned," he said.

The minister said that BSNL has seen a 20-30 per cent increase in revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year due to the rollout of 4G services and technology is settling down.

"Earlier, there were some technical issues but over 90 per cent of them have been sorted out. There were issues around power stations. 30,000 power stations have been replaced with an expenditure of around Rs 600-700 crore," Pemmasani said, adding that improvement in power supplies has resulted in higher uptime for BSNL networks and enhanced customer's experience.

"Each circle is being given individual targets in terms of increasing subscriber base," he said, adding that BSNL has had a lot of legacy issues that are being resolved now.

When asked about the status of Chinese equipment in BSNL, the minister said that the government plans to continue using indigenous technologies in the state-run firm and it will gradually phase out 2G and 3G equipment and do away with the need for maintenance of that equipment.

BSNL has installed 2G and 3G technology using some of the equipment from Chinese vendors, including ZTE.