Elon Musk’s Starlink has been granted a licence by India’s telecom ministry to begin commercial operations, two sources said on Friday, overcoming a significant obstacle for the satellite service provider eager to enter the South Asian market.
The approval is good news for Musk, whose public spat with President Donald Trump threatens $22 billion of SpaceX’s contracts and space programmes with the U.S. government.
Starlink is the third company to get a licence from India’s Department of Telecommunications, which has approved similar applications by Eutelsat’s OneWeb and Reliance Jio to provide services in the country.
Starlink and the Department of Telecommunications did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sources declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit in February to the United States, where the two discussed Starlink’s launch plans and India’s concerns over meeting certain security conditions.
Starlink has been waiting since 2022 for licences to operate commercially in India, and although it has cleared a major hurdle, it is a long way from launching commercial services.
Musk and billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio clashed for months over how India should grant spectrum for satellite services. India’s government sided with Musk that the spectrum should be assigned and not auctioned.
India’s telecom regulator in May proposed that satellite service providers pay 4% of their annual revenue to the government for offering services, which domestic players have said is unjustifiably low and will hurt their businesses.
Deloitte predicts India’s satellite broadband service market will be worth $1.9 billion by 2030, making it lucrative for players like Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper, which is still awaiting a licence.
(With inputs from Reuters)
