The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday recommended the telecom department to issue a separate licence for satellite earth station gateways that connect space communications with land-based networks.

Such a licence will be limited to controlling the infrastructure and distribution of services by the authorised players.

The Satellite Earth Station Gateway (SESG) permit holders will not provide any service directly to end customers and be levied a non-refundable one-time entry fee of Rs 10 lakh, according to TRAI recommendations.

"There shall be a separate Satellite Earth Station Gateway (SESG) Licence under the Section 4 of Indian Telegraph Act. The SESG licence will not form part of the Unified License (UL)," TRAI recommended to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

At present, the DoT is the licensing authority for telecommunication services, while the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) is the licensing authority for broadcasting services in the country.

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"The SESG licence shall be valid for a period of 20 years from the effective date of the licence with a provision of renewal for 10 years," TRAI recommended.

The SESG licence holder may be allowed to set up several SESGs to cater to the requirement of constellation based satellite service providers but would need to obtain separate permission from the DoT before installing each SESG.

TRAI has recommended that the SESG should be allowed to share its resources to only players that have received permits from DoT, MIB and those authorised by the government.

The regulator has recommended that the mandate to compulsorily establish Land Earth Station Gateway, Hub Station, Uplink Earth Station in the relevant permits granted by DoT and MIB shall be removed.

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(Edited by : Anushka Sharma)