The race to bring satellite internet to India's remotest corners has run into a geopolitical snag, and the world's most prominent satellite internet firm, led by Elon Musk, is pushing back publicly against claims that it is stuck.
Starlink, the satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX, said on Wednesday that it remains in "active and productive discussions" with the Indian government and has received "encouraging feedback" on its potential to advance India's connectivity ambitions, particularly in remote and underserved regions.
The statement from Lauren Dreyer, Starlink's Vice President for Business Operations, posted on X, came directly in response to a Bloomberg report that said India has effectively frozen approvals for Starlink to begin commercial operations.
According to Bloomberg, security agencies under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs have withheld the final clearances Starlink needs to launch in India. The reported trigger is a concern that Starlink terminals were being used in the ongoing US-Iran war despite the service not being licensed in that country, raising fears in New Delhi about its ability to exercise control over a US-based operator during a live geopolitical conflict.
India has already issued licences to the other two satellite internet applicants—Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat Oneweb and Jio's SGS (Space Technology Ltd)—who are now awaiting spectrum allocation to roll out their services.
Starlink, by contrast, has only received a letter of intent and is still awaiting its final licence.
Dreyer said Starlink has set up a "bespoke deployment model for India" to align with the country's sovereign technology, regulatory, and security requirements. The Centre is yet to comment on the Bloomberg report publicly.
India has crores of people in areas where ground-based broadband infrastructure is sparse or absent. This is exactly the market that Starlink's low-Earth-orbit technology was designed to serve. Every month of delay is a month that Eutelsat Oneweb and Jio's satellite arm gain a head start. And that is not something that will sit well with Elon Musk.
