Bharti Airtel Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said India must keep control of the "kill switch" for satellite communications on its own soil, as the government weighs security conditions that will decide when satellite broadband goes live.
"The kill switch, as we call it, should not be sitting somewhere else," Mittal said in an interview with PTI marking Bharti Enterprises' 50th year. "India must have control over its own space destiny." He did not name a company in that remark.
The kill switch is the ability to cut off, throttle or restrict a satellite network's service, whether for a single terminal, a region or an entire country, from the operator's control systems and ground gateways. In satellite broadband, user terminals connect to satellites, which relay traffic to ground stations and then to the internet, so whoever runs those control and gateway systems can in principle disable users or reroute their data.
Governments see it as a security tool. It would let them shut down service quickly in a conflict, during a security threat or to enforce lawful orders, and it would let them monitor and intercept traffic.
The implications cut both ways. If the switch sits with a foreign operator or abroad, a country's military, emergency and civilian users can lose connectivity because of a decision made elsewhere, which Mittal calls losing control of "its own space destiny." If it sits with the government, that same power can be used to cut off access in national emergencies or for strategic reasons.