New Delhi, Aug. 14 -- India is looking to give its defence forces a competitive edge in modern warfare and security through state-of-the-art satellite communications (satcom) in partnership with the private sector, four people with direct knowledge of the matter said. The move will also open up new business vistas for satcom providers, which are yet to commence operations in the country. The department of telecommunications (DoT) is expected to conduct spectrum allocation sometime soon. Multiple trials have been conducted by the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy with private satcom providers such as OneWeb and Jio-SES over the past two years, the people cited above said. Trials with OneWeb, which is backed by Airtel's parent firm Bharti Enterprises, have offered low-latency, satellite-based network connectivity with military-grade encryption on multiple occasions. Jio-SES, the second Indian satcom service provider with a licence from the DoT, has also held more than two defence-sector trials, two of the people cited above said. The trials were conducted during the India-Vietnam joint military exercise in November last year, and Operation Brahma in Myanmar in April, among other occasions. The idea behind the trials is to see how old satellite communications standards can be overhauled for the armed forces, these people added. The Centre's move would see the gradual replacement of older, large very small aperture terminal (VSAT) receivers, which connect with Indian Space Research Organisation's (Isro's) geosynchronous earth orbit (Geo) satellites. Such receivers are typically bulky and need specialized transport, and their connectivity is also slow. OneWeb and Jio-SES offer portable satcom terminals that are small enough to come in a backpack. They also deliver faster network connectivity that is critical for remote drones and other tech-heavy defence equipment in distant areas....