India wants satellite tv for pc web particularly in its rural areas, its telecom minister mentioned, a constructive regulatory signal for Elon Musk’s Starlink which has aspirations to operate on this planet’s most-populous nation.
“There are lots of distant corners of the nation the place you can not take fiber or cell connectivity. How do you do 100% saturation if you do not have satellite tv for pc web?” Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia mentioned in an interview in New Delhi Tuesday. He added that satellite connectivity can be “the one approach which you could activate issues” if pure disasters destroy towers and fiber networks.
Emphasising the complementary — and never aggressive — function performed by these providers, Scindia mentioned India was dedicated to supply customers terrestrial, fiber in addition to satellite tv for pc communications.
The minister’s remarks underscore the stable backing for these providers from the Narendra Modi-led authorities. It additionally bolsters international companies vying for an Indian entry, together with Starlink, Amazon’s Project Kuiper and OneWeb.
Whereas Starlink is but to safe a regulatory license to start out operations in India and is awaiting native guidelines on spectrum pricing, many issues are starting to align for the US agency.
Final week, it introduced alliances with two Indian wi-fi operators —- Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel — successful over those that had earlier opposed Starlink being granted low-cost airwaves.
‘Open for Anybody’
“India’s market is open for anybody and everybody who desires to come back and take part on this massive market and supply a service,” Scindia mentioned. “Finally it is the patron that has to resolve who they are going to go together with.”
Scindia declined to touch upon when Starlink could get the license or what value satellite tv for pc web companies can be requested to pay for airwaves.
India’s telecom regulator is making guidelines on the latter and the way the spectrum is priced will affect the price of satellite tv for pc broadband for customers in India.
India is the world’s second-largest web market, trailing China. Telephone information costs are as little as $0.11 (roughly Rs. 9.52) per gigabyte, among the many lowest on this planet, and any entrant can be preventing for customers in a price-sensitive market.
Safety Situations
Scindia mentioned the companies will resolve the pricing of their satellite tv for pc web providers.
International companies, together with SpaceX’s Starlink, may also must fulfill India’s inside and exterior safety situations earlier than securing a license. Rival OneWeb in addition to Reliance Jio’s JioSpaceFiber has already acquired the native licenses to start out operations.
“Finally it will be an economies of scale argument that’ll come by,” Scindia mentioned. “At this level of time, let the market be penetrated first.”
© 2025 Bloomberg LP
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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