Elon Musk’s Starlink likely to get approval from Telecom Ministry for starting services in India: Report

Elon Musk's Starlink is likely to get approval from the telecom ministry to start offering its services in India. 

A report by The Times of India while quoting sources noted, "A high-level meeting is slated for later this month and Starlink's proposal for a global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) services licence is expected to be taken up there," 

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"The meeting is likely to give an approval to the proposal, though we cannot rule out certain last-minute hiccups that may cause some more delays." the report added. 

Notably, Reliance Jio and Sunil Mittal's One Web have already secured the GMPPCS license in India.

Next steps for Starlink in India: 

As per the report, despite the GMPCS license Starlink will also have to receive approval from different government wings and the Department of Space before launching operations in the country. 

In late 2021, the Elon Musk-backed company had got a scolding from the Telecom Ministry for taking advance money from subscribers for services when it hadn't even procured the license. The Ministry had asked Starlink to start refunding the money to around 5,000 odd customers who had pre-ordered its services in India.

Elon Musk on Starlink's relevance in India:

Following a meeting with PM Narendra Modi in the US, Elon Musk had said that Starlink can be ‘incredibly helpful’ in remote villages of the country that have no internet or lack high-speed services, reported Reuters. 

Starlink has been pleading with the Indian government to not auction the spectrum but just assign licences in line with a global trend, saying it is a natural resource that should be shared by companies. An auction may impose geographical restrictions that will raise costs, it said in company letters made public by the Indian government last month.