SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses members of the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft, at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, Oct. 10, 2019.
Philip Pacheco | Afp | Getty Images
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has accused people with vested interests of blocking the launch of his company’s satellite internet service, Starlink, to protect their hold over consumers, calling it “a crime against the people of India.”
The country’s telecom and internet service market is dominated by Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s Jio and Sunil Mittal’s Airtel, with both companies together holding over 80% market share.
“We are being blocked by certain oligarchs in order to maintain their monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people,” Musk said Wednesday stateside in a post on X, without naming his rivals. “You can guess who they are,” he said.
On Thursday, the Indian government said suggestions that its regulatory framework was unfair or discriminatory were “baseless and misconceived.”
Licenses have been granted to three global satellite communication services providers, the government said, without naming the companies, adding that every licensee was “required to demonstrate compliance with security conditions.” Starlink received the government license last year.
In a second post, Musk said Starlink in India would “enable high-speed, affordable internet connectivity for those who cannot afford current prices.” At present, Reliance Industries-owned Jio is the country’s largest telecom operator and has been widely credited for slashing high-speed mobile data costs in the country since the company’s launch a decade ago.
Starlink’s competition
In June, Jio Platforms announced plans to roll out low-orbit satellite communications in the country. Akash Ambani, the son of Mukesh, told shareholders that the company is partnering with leading global constellation providers to lease satellite capacity as it looks for a quick rollout of satellite connectivity.
SpaceX last year had announced deals with Jio and India’s second-largest telecom service provider, Bharti Airtel, to roll out Starlink internet services across India. There seems to have been little progress on that front, with Starlink yet to launch its service in the country.
CNBC has reached out to Airtel and Reliance Industries for comments.
There are 11,000 Starlink satellites currently in orbit that provide service to people in over 170 countries, Lauren Dreyer, SpaceX’s Vice President of Starlink business operations, said while speaking at India Mobile Congress on Wednesday.
Starlink works with government and private companies to close the digital divide by providing internet access to people in remote places, she said, adding that it has been “working for years” in India to do the same, and mentioned the company’s memorandum of understanding with Airtel and Reliance Jio.
Elon Musk’s satellite internet services company is also facing pushback from regulators in India over security concerns, which the company has denied. In June, Bloomberg reported that regulators in New Delhi had frozen approvals for Starlink over fears that its terminals could be used despite the service not being licensed.
The Indian government is concerned about a foreign player operating in a sensitive technology like satellite communications, and there are questions around how Starlink’s terminals will be “geofenced” and whether the data will be localized, said Neil Shah, a partner at Counterpoint Research.
Starlink is likely to get approval to launch around the time when Indian companies also develop their own satellite internet services, Shah said. If Starlink is launched without creating a “level playing field,” it will dominate satellite communications services in India, he added.
