Is India readying to roll out the red carpet for Starlink and its owner Elon Musk? The same Musk who ditched an Indian invitation not long ago to strike a deal with China on his Tesla factory?
According to a report in The Economic Times quoting “people with knowledge of the matter,” the security requirements for a satellite licence are being relaxed “in what could be a big win for Elon Musk-owned Starlink.”
This would include “remote management of satellite networks.” It means a network in India can be managed by somebody outside. This has never been allowed by any Indian government.
The report also says the government could scrap the requirement for latitude-longitude binding, which means anybody can buy a fixed terminal at one place and use it elsewhere with the company having no control over it.
So a terminal bought for use in Delhi could be moved to border areas such as Ladakh or J&K. The dangers are obvious but these are global standards and the government seems keen on moving closer to global standards.
Or does the government hope to kill two birds with the proverbial one stone? Get access to a high-tech satellite network which could be paired with the indigenous 6G wireless technology.
“6G is about combining terrestrial and space-based telecom networks,” Prof V Kamakoti, Director IIT Madras told StratNewsGlobal in an interview for an article dated Nov 2, “Musk has the basic building blocks that nobody else has, from new and reusable rockets to the ability to deploy large numbers of satellites.”
The other bird of course is US President-elect Donald Trump, whose “First Buddy” is none other than Elon Musk. Having spent a reported $250 million on Trump’s election campaign, Musk is adviser, friend and a lot of other things including being in charge of downsizing government.
That suggests a lot of influence and given Trump’s propensity to be impulsive, transactional and so on, a word in the right ear may persuade the president to tone things down, goes the thinking in some circles in Delhi.
Would Musk play ball? If the stakes are right, why not? He’s getting entry into a potentially huge market barely plugged into satellite services. Even if initially the market for Starlink is small because his charges are high, as the market grows services could become cheaper, more affordable, drawing even more consumers.
There will be competition in the form of established players Reliance Jio and Airtel, companies that know the Indian market inside out. But Musk is no stranger to competition, he’s been doing it in China for many years and his equation with that country’s political and business elite is well founded.
Who knows, Musk could even help India make inroads into China or at the least, provide insight into Chinese thinking and strategy.
He could provide leverage for India when navigating the US corporate network, enabling access, opening doors to capital and technology. That would be a great boost for India’s space startups.
What if Trump and Musk fall out? It could happen but there’s no success without risk. As the saying goes, it’s better to have tried and failed than not having tried at all.
