The Department of Telecommunications (‘DOT’) has amended the very small aperture terminal services license agreement (‘VSAT Agreement’), by way of Notification no. 824-201/TRAI/2020-SAT(VOL.-III) dated May 06, 2022, to change the number of the closed user group (‘CUG’) that can be set up by very small aperture terminal (‘VSAT’) CUG service licensees. Pursuant to the amendment, the VSAT CUG service licensees can now set up more than one CUG for their own use.

The amendment has also introduced few additions to the existing framework, which include, inter alia: (i) permitting VSAT terminal to aggregate the traffic from machine to machine (‘M2M’)/internet to internet devices (‘IoT Devices’) as long as CUG nature of the network is not violated; (ii) permitting user terminal stations on moving platform for provisioning of connectivity subject to compliance to the Telecommunication Engineering Centre (‘TEC’) standards and conditions; and (iii) restricting M2M/ IoT Devices, used in any architecture (including direct–to–satellite or in aggregator mode) to be treated as VSAT for the purpose of levy of license fee.