By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's government on Tuesday said it will allot spectrum for satellite broadband administratively and not via auction, hours after Elon Musk criticized the auction route being sought by rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani as "unprecedented".
In what is seen as a battle between billionaires, the methodology of awarding spectrum for satellite services in India - a market set to grow 36% a year to reach $1.9 billion by 2030 - has been a contentious issue since last year.
Musk's Starlink argues administrative allotment of licences is in line with a global trend, while India's Reliance, led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, says an auction is needed to ensure a level playing field and as there are no provisions in Indian law on how individuals can be provided satellite broadband services.
Telecoms Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said during a New Delhi event that the spectrum will be allocated administratively in line with Indian laws, and its pricing worked out by the telecom watchdog.
"If you do decide to auction it, then you will be doing something which is different from the rest of the world," he said.
Musk was appreciative of the government's decision, and said on social media platform X, "We will do our best to serve the people of India with Starlink".
On Sunday, Reuters was first to report that Reliance had challenged the Indian telecom regulator's consultation process that signals home satellite broadband spectrum should be allocated, not auctioned, calling for it to start again.
The minister's comment will come as a shot in the arm for Musk, who following the Reuters story, wrote on X late on Monday that any decision to auction "would be unprecedented".
"This spectrum was long designated by the ITU as shared spectrum for satellites," Musk said, referring to the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. agency for digital technology.
India is a member of the ITU and signatory to its treaty that regulates satellite spectrum and advocates that allocation must be done "rationally, efficiently and economically" as it is a "limited natural resource".
Sunil Mittal, co-chair of global satellite group Eutelsat, which has partnered with India's telecom operator Bharti Airtel, voiced support for the auction route on Tuesday.
"Satellite companies who have ambitions to come into urban areas, serving elite retail customers, just need to take the telecom licenses like everybody else... they need to buy the spectrum as telecom companies buy," Mittal, who is also the chair of Airtel, said at the New Delhi event.
Earlier in 2023, both Eutelsat unit OneWeb and Airtel had voiced concerns about auctioning the spectrum in their submissions to the Indian government.
Musk's Starlink and some global peers like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)'s Project Kuiper back an administrative allocation, saying spectrum is a natural resource that should be shared by companies.