Foreign News
Starlink Must Wait For Jio To Get Its Satellite Act Together
It appears highly unlikely that Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communication network will launch its India operations this year. Telecom industry sources told StratNewsGlobal that next year would be more realistic is because that is also when RelianceJio is expected to launch its satellite service.
“The aim is to ensure competition,” the sources said,”Jio can launch next year, they don’t need all their satellites in place, they can start with a skeleton service and ensure the Starlink does not have a free run of the market.”
“But Reliance Jio lacks the technological foundations to compete on any meaningful level with Starlink,” argues Ashwin Prasad, noting that “Limited satellite manufacturing capability, low Indian launch cadence which forces foreign dependence, perhaps on Spacex itself for launch. That access may be disturbed by geopolitical shifts.
Prasad is a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru where he works on outer space programmes.
Rather than Reliance having to contend, he believes it is the Indian space ecosystem that has to contend with the fact that ISRO has not had a successful launch last year or this year. Rather its workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has experienced repeated failures.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that ISRO’s Next Generation Launch Vehicle, a reusable heavy lift rocket that will support human spaceflight, will only be ready post 2030 or 2032.
Back to Starlink. For the government, the foundational issue is security and sovereignty. Industry sources said Starlink cannot be allowed a monopoly because it puts India in a position of dependence on a foreign company with its headquarters in the US.
What happens if Starlink decides to cut the service as it has done in Ukraine and Russia, is the question being asked at the highest levels of government.
If that is so, what explains the government decision to remove the 20% local sourcing requirement for Starlink (also Eutelsat Oneweb and Amazon Leo) from the final telecom authorisation rules?
A Livemint report said draft rules issued last year required telecom operators to source at least 20% of the value of ground-segment equipment and infrastructure from India within five years of launching commercial services.
This was removed from the final rules as it was “creating confusion”, telecom officials were quoted in the media as saying. The GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite Services) issued by IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre), has security guidelines and also undertakings provided by the operators. Starlink has subscribed to GMPCS.
The irony is, even today, under international law Starlink can start its India operations basing its satellites 100 km above the earth, where spectrum belongs to no one. It can beam directly into India with little fear of jamming since that capability is limited. This was also evident in Iran during the recent war.
Even more serious is the fact that there is no way to detect Starlink terminals operating in the country. In Dec 2024, a Starlink dish and router were recovered from Metei insurgents in Manipur.
The other concern centres around Starlink’s new generation satellites that can communicate with each other using lasers. The government fears this technology could enable Indian user data to be routed outside the country’s jurisdiction, potentially exposing it to foreign surveillance or hostile jurisdictions.
A host of security issues, which is why the Union Home Ministry put the brakes on Starlink. Given how matters have developed, it is unlikely that the forthcoming Indian Mobile Congress will feature anything on satellite communication.
