Elon Musk’s Starlink has been granted a licence to launch satellite services in India, with a spectrum allocation framework already established to facilitate a seamless rollout, Union Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia announced on Thursday (July 31). Notably, the announcement was made on the 30th anniversary of first phone call in India.
It was on this date in 1995 that a phone call between the then Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram in Delhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu in Kolkata took place, giving a kickstart to India’s mobile telephony.
Starlink in India: Who will Elon Musk’s satellite service compete with?
Expected to be launched soon, Musk’s Starlink is set to compete with leading players in India’s satellite broadband sector such as Eutelsat, OneWeb supported by the Bharti Group, and Jio’s collaboration with Luxembourg-based SES. Although both competitors have received service authorisation, they are yet to get spectrum allocation.
According to Scindia, telephone connections across the country have reached 1.2 billion, while internet subscriptions have witnessed a surge of nearly 286%, totalling 970 million. “Broadband usage has experienced an extraordinary expansion of over 1450%, rising from 60 million in 2014 to 944 million at present.”
Remarkably, the cost of mobile data has plummeted by 96.6%, positioning India as the global leader in data affordability at merely Rs 8.9 per GB.
What would be Starlink’s per month cost?
Users eager to use Starlink services should know that Musk’s satellite company could offer its high-speed internet service at a monthly cost of around Rs 3,000, according to a report in PTI. However, the service won’t be widely available initially and will be capped at 20 lakh users across the country.
Further, the internet speeds are expected to be in the range of 25 mbps to 220 mbps.
Starlink hardware, needed for the high-speed internet connection, will include a dish and router. It is reportedly being planned to be distributed in partnership with leading telecom giants like Airtel and Jio.
India’s Telecom Sector: What has been some major transformations?
Reflecting on the 30th anniversary of India’s inaugural cellular call, SP Kochhar, Director General of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), remarked that the nation’s telecom landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation since 1995.
“India now ranks as the world’s second-largest telecom market, with over 1.2 billion subscribers and among the most affordable tariff structures globally. The average Indian subscriber consumes upwards of 21 GB of data per month, highlighting the robust infrastructure developed by leading Indian telecom providers,” Kochhar said.