By SpaceX has approached the Indian government to consider using Starlink internet technologies in the country. Last year, in August, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a consultation paper on the roadmap for ‘Promotional Broadband Connectivity and Enhanced Broadband’. In response to the paper, Patricia Cooper, vice president of Satellite Government Affairs at SpaceX, said that Starlink’s high-speed satellite network would “pursue the goal of giving broadband connectivity to all Indians in the near future, especially those Which are now or without access. ” In the near-term of broadband services traditionally available only to customers in urban and suburban areas. The submission also states that Starlink will help eliminate many of the high costs associated with traditional broadband. If TRAI heeds these recommendations, SpaceX may soon launch Starlink in India.
What are Starlink’s internet plans for India?
Having achieved success in the venture so far, Musk now plans to disrupt the Indian telecom industry by venturing into the telecom sector with Starlink. The initial plan for SpaceX is to enter the Indian telecom industry with 100-Mbps satellite-based Internet. SpaceX has said that Starlink is now eyeing a $1 trillion market created by in-flight internet, marine services, demand in China and India.
What is Starlink?
Starlink is a low-Earth satellite planetarium that can provide broadband Internet connections to even the remotest corners of the world. About 1,000 satellites have been launched so far to provide service. SpaceX is now working to expand its coverage with more satellites in constellations and more ground stations. According to SpaceX, the speed varies between 50 Mbps and 150 Mbps.
The company already got 10,000 users In 120 Days
On Thursday, SpaceX said in its filing that in just four months after entering beta, aerospace company SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet service has entertained more than 10,000 users worldwide. In a petition by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), SpaceX stated that the service is being used by more than 10,000 users in the United States and abroad. SpaceX has also asked the FCC to designate “qualified telecommunications carriers” (ETCs) in the petition. By having ETC, the company will be eligible for federal cash, including money from the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), which it won in December.
The RDOF was a $20.4 billion effort to spread high-speed Internet across the US, particularly in rural areas. As part of the first phase of RDOF, in the month of December, the FCC awarded SpaceX approximately $900 million to expand StarLink in the US. To obtain funding, however, SpaceX must overcome more obstacles and provide a more detailed plan of the same. ETC will help the organization rapidly expand its service to new areas of Alabama, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The petitioning firm gained access to those areas under the RDOF, filing the petition.
However, on Thursday, many smaller Internet service providers were not particularly happy with SpaceX as well as other large companies and sought intervention and vetting with the FCC. Their reasoning behind this was that these firms were using unproven and should be used aggressively. Starlink’s public beta testing, “Nothing Better Than It”, now operates in North America, Canada and parts of Europe.
Speed & costs for the kit
In an email to customers when the beta was launched, SpaceX stated that speeds vary from 50 Mbps to 150 Mbps. $499 upfront for a kit with a tripod, a WiFi router, and a terminal for connecting satellites while access costs $99 per month. Via reusable Falcon 9 rocket, the company has so far launched more than 1,000 working satellites into orbit. In a recent launch, 60 Starlink satellites were put into orbit by Falcon 9. By mid-2027, SpaceX intends to launch 42000 satellites, to create a high-speed Internet service that spans the globe.
