A long-standing debate over how India will allocate its satellite spectrum seemed to reach an important milestone on Tuesday: The country announced it will allocate spectrum for satellite services through administrative means-setting a price that is payable first-come, first-served-rather than auction.

Spectrum for satcomm is shared spectrum, and cannot be auctioned. Administrative allocation of satellite spectrum is practiced worldwide. As said by India's Communications Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday evening.

The order is important not merely because it decides how to share scarce, precious spectrum for new communications services but also because it will likely signal the entry of the likes of Elon Musk and his satellite services, Starlink, into India's money-printing telecom market. Amazon's Project Kuiper, which also aims to enter India's broadband market, was another new entrant that pleaded for shared access to the spectrum.

Probably, Indian telcos have been trying to strangle his ambitious plans by supporting the idea of an auction. One of the most vocal voices has been Reliance Jio, run by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, which has called for auctions to ensure a "level playing field.".

Another is Sunil Mittal, the other co-chairman of Eutelsat and chairman of Bharti Airtel. He has also been touting the auction route. Earlier on Tuesday, he said that satellite companies serving urban areas should "take the telecom licenses like everybody else" and purchase spectrum accordingly.

Airtel said in a statement that came out after Mittal's comments: "So, mobile operators and satcom operators who have coexisted for decades can continue to do so to serve those who are yet to find internet connectivity."

Musk had threatened on Monday that having satellite spectrum auctions "would be unprecedented," referring to the long-standing ITU designations of shared satellite spectrum.

India is the most populous country in the world with over 1.4 billion, though it still lags way behind in narrowing down its digital divide. Today, 950 million people access the internet, which means 490 million – more than one-third of its population – are still offline. Thus, there is still a lot to go with new openings. Despite the fact that satellite broadband is more expensive than traditional cellular services, it has also been very high up on the agenda for expanding access to areas without infrastructure in place today or as a backhaul route to expand the capacity of the terrestrial mobile networks.

Historically, Jio and Airtel have been the telecom sector leaders in India by offering their network across a range of network frequencies. The duo has also been toying around with satellite broadband for some months in order to take on global players such as Starlink and Amazon.

India's largest telco operator, Jio, has teamed up with SES, the Luxembourg-based satellite communications service provider, in a bid to claim a share of the country's satellite broadband market in 2022. The venture, branded as Orbit Connect, received its rights and market access approvals from the space industry regulator, IN-SPACe, earlier this year. The operator also rolled out its own satellite broadband service branded JioSpaceFiber last year. It said this would enable high-speed internet access across the country "at highly affordable prices.".

Like Jio, Airtel has OneWeb India, a local subsidiary of low-earth orbit operator Eutelsat OneWeb, to pursue its grand ambitions to offer satellite broadband services in this South Asian country. The business also got the green light for launching its commercial satellite broadband services.

Jio and Airtel demand administrative allocation is too restrictive, while spectrum auctions will give more space to new players: It would be less favorable for the existing contenders. But till date, the Indian government has given away satellite spectrum only through administrative allocation.

The country's telecom law the Indian government passed last year makes administrative allocation an exception for satellite communication spectrum. Last month, the Indian regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, also floated a consultation paper (PDF) looking at the methodology and price for assigning spectrum to satellite companies.

"The satellite spectrum across the world is allocated administratively. So, India is not doing anything different from the rest of the world. Conversely, if you do decide to auction it, then you will be doing something which is different from the rest of the world," Scindia said.