Satellite ‘magic bullet’ to connect the unconnected, says Sunil Mittal

New Delhi: Satellite communications is a “magic bullet” to cover dark unconnected areas, Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal said on Monday, adding that players now have a great new opportunity to leverage satellite connectivity to cover remote areas that have so far been left out.

Mittal said that nearly two billion people in the world are still not connected to the internet, and in the Indian context too there are areas — large swathes of desert, forests, coastlines — where neither mobile networks nor fibre are feasible. “For those areas, you need satellite communications, and that, to my mind, offers now a great source of new opportunities for us, mobile operators, or telecom operators, to put that in a mix and start to cover areas which are still left behind,” Mittal said.

About 5 per cent of India’s population sans internet connectivity lives in 25 per cent of the area, he said, emphasising that satellite is the only solution for them. “India provides a very high quality signal to 95 per cent of its population, but there are still five per cent of people who do not get internet in the country, and they live in 25 per cent of the area of the country. So it’s a very large area with a very small population, the only way to cover that is satellite,” Mittal said.

Mittal said that two ground stations in Mehsana (Gujarat) and in Pondicherry are in a state of preparedness and ready to start services. “The day government gives us the permission, there will not be a single square inch of this country which will not have radio coverage. So you just need to raise your hand and be connected,” he said. Mittal said he is of the view that satellite is truly a “magic bullet” to cover the dark areas, and noted that about 2 billion people in the world are still not connected to internet, including in advanced nations like the US.