NEW DELHI: This Centre is set to grant a licence to Elon Musk-led Starlink for starting satellite broadband services in India in the next few days.
The company had applied for the global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) licence, which offers satellite communication services in licensed service areas, in October 2022.
According to the sources in the DoT (Department of Telecommunication), Starlinks’ licence application was pending due to a security issue; now everything is ironed out and the application is at the final stage for approval.
Subsequently, the licence can be granted in the next week or so. The official also mentioned that to award a licence to the company, one doesn’t discuss it with the Digital Communications Commission (DCC), the highest decision-making body of the DoT.
“There was no delay in granting the licence, but due diligence,” said the official. Musk is set to visit India this month to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and he can also announce a Tesla factory in the country. It is believed that at the same time, the government may also announce granting licences to Startlink to start its satellite broadband services in the country.
Meanwhile, Bharti Enterprises-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s Satcom venture already have GMPCS permits from the government. Jeff Bezos-led Amazon, too, has applied for a licence for its Project Kuiper satellite broadband venture.
This is the second instance when Starlink is trying to start its services in India. In 2022, the company started pre-booking even before getting regulatory approvals from DoT. Subsequently, DoT forced the company to return the pre-booking amount to applicants and seek licence first.
Usually, the license is granted for a period of 20 years. As per India’s Space Policy 2023, private low-earth orbit (LEO) and medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite constellation operators will launch fast broadband from space services in the country. As per an EY-ISpA report, India’s space economy is set to expand to $13 billion by 2025, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 6% from nearly $9.6 billion in 2020.