On Tuesday, Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that Elon Musk’s Starlink must follow all the regulatory norms, including seeking a license, to operate in India. The minister was apprised that the satellite internet service provider is currently in the process of meeting the requirements and, once done, will be accorded a license.
“Starlink needs to fulfill all the requirements to get the license. Security perspectives are also very important. They are in the process of fulfilling that. Once everything is okay, they will get the license,” Scindia told reporters about the status of the licensing process for Starlink. The government of India has already licensed the joint ventures: OneWeb- Bharti Group and Jio-SES, branded as Jio Satellite Communications.
Reports say Starlink has, in principle, agreed to abide by the principles laid down by the DoT in recent meetings. This is one of the key conditions laid down by the government and has been one of the main points of contention over Starlink’s India entry.
Starlink is a constellation of satellites intended to offer the Internet at a low cost in remote and underserved areas. Its parent company, SpaceX, aims to eventually build up to 42,000 satellites in a mega-constellation leveraging the 6,500 already in orbit.
This is increasing competition for Starlink from Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper and established private telecom operators like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea. These telecom companies have raised objections, saying only auctioned satellite spectrum must be allowed for urban or retail consumers if there has to be a level playing field since they acquired their spectrums through auctions and not administrative allocations.
