New Delhi, May 9 -- Satellite communication companies such as Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb, and Jio will have to pay 4% of their adjusted gross revenue as spectrum charges to the government, as per the telecom regulator's recommendations issued on Friday.

This is steeper than what these companies had been lobbying for. Elon Musk's Starlink and Amazon Inc.'s subsidiary Kuiper Systems had during consultations with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India urged it to keep the spectrum charge below 1% of their adjusted gross revenue, with no other charges.

Trai, however, has also recommended Rs.3,500 per MHz as annual minimum spectrum charges for companies offering both fixed satellite services and mobile satellite services, and an annual cha...