India Issues New Security Norms for Satellite Communication Services: Report

The telecom department (DoT) has made security rules stricter for satellite communication services under the GMPCS permit, adding over 20 conditions for both current and new providers in India.

The new rules apply to existing players like Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio-SES, as well as newcomers like Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper. These changes aim to tackle national security concerns due to rising global tensions and fast-growing satellite tech, such as inter-satellite links and mobile terminals.

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The new rules require companies to keep their data centres and network hubs (PoPs) within India. All satellite service-related DNS lookups must also happen inside the country. Satcom providers must also promise that no Indian telecom data will be copied or decrypted outside India.

"The Monitoring and Lawful Interception shall be provided as per the licensing condition(s) at the gateway/point of presence (PoP)/network control and monitoring centre (NCMC) /any equivalent facility. The LIS/LIM system shall be integrated with a centralised monitoring system (CMS)/integrated monitoring system (IMS)," the guidelines said.

"The licensee shall provide real-time monitoring to ensure that no user traffic originating from, or destined for India is being routed through any gateway/ PoPs outside Indian territory. The Indian user traffic shall not be routed through any Gateway/PoP located abroad or any space system, which is not part of satellite/constellation used for providing service," the rule said.

To boost local manufacturing, the DoT now requires companies to submit a step-by-step plan to make at least 20% of their ground equipment in India within five years of starting operations.

For mobile services, user terminals must now share their location every 2.6 km or every minute, whichever comes first. These systems must also be able to shut down service if the terminal enters a restricted area. This is a big change from earlier rules, which only allowed fixed-location terminals.

The new rules require satcom providers to support India’s NavIC navigation system and block the same websites already restricted in India across their satellite networks. They must also make sure user devices in India don’t connect through foreign gateways.

Additionally, providers must set up a 50-km monitoring zone along international borders to boost security and prevent misuse. The rules ban location spoofing and ensure that sensitive user data and locations are not visible or accessible outside India.

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