Nelco Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Group is aiming to launch fast satellite broadband services in India in collaboration with Canadian telecom company Telesat. According to ET Telecom, the companies are in final talks for the project that will operate under Telesat’s Lightspeed brand

Telesat, which is a Canadian satellite communication corporation, is the fourth international company after OneWeb, SpaceX, and Amazon, aiming to enter India’s satellite broadband segment.

“Nelco and Telesat will have a master services agreement (MSA) to provide Lightspeed LEO (low-earth orbit) satellite services in India… we are in the process of finalising details of the commercial arrangements,” Nelco’s managing director PJ Nath told ET.

According to ET, Telesat is planning to invest almost $5 billion to build a global constellation of 298-odd LEO satellites, and its global Lightspeed satellite internet services (including in India) are planned by 2024.

Meanwhile, OneWeb and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are prepping to launch satellite internet operations in India by 2022 while Amazon is aiming to invest in India’s broadband segment as part of its global space internet initiative, Project Kuiper. The Indian broadband segment is the key satellite internet market with almost a $1 billion annual revenue opportunity.

If approved and launched, Telesat’s satellite bandwidth capacity will offer services to telecom operators in remote and inhospitable regions where mobile or internet infrastructure is relatively weak.

Just like One Web, Tata-Telesat collaboration plans to operate on a business-to-business (B2B) model in India.

Being the second-largest consumer of broadband service, still, a large fraction of the Indian population, especially in the rural region, where almost 75% of people do not have access to high-end internet services.

India ranks 131 in the mobile internet speed index, according to Ookla.