For nearly FIVE YEARS, Elon and the Starlink team have been trying to bring high-speed internet to India, especially to rural and remote areas where reliable connectivity is still difficult and expensive to reach
Starlink has spent years working through India’s requirements
It has secured its telecom licences, received IN-SPACe approval, built 20+ gateway sites and designed its operations specifically around India’s security requirements including keeping Indian user data inside India
And yet Starlink still cannot serve a single commercial customer
The final clearances and spectrum assignment are still pending
India is still about 64% rural…..roughly 941 million people live in rural areas
Starlink is ready
The ground infrastructure is already built
That years-long delay is hard to justify and incredibly frustrating
Starlink will give many more people another way to access high-speed internet, especially in places where fibre and mobile networks struggle to reach
And that makes the situation even harder to understand when Digital India itself is built around broadband access and closing connectivity gaps
If the goal is really to bring more Indians online, Starlink should not still be sitting on the sidelines after nearly five years
Starlink has spent years working through India’s requirements
It has secured its telecom licences, received IN-SPACe approval, built 20+ gateway sites and designed its operations specifically around India’s security requirements including keeping Indian user data inside India
And yet Starlink still cannot serve a single commercial customer
The final clearances and spectrum assignment are still pending
India is still about 64% rural…..roughly 941 million people live in rural areas
Starlink is ready
The ground infrastructure is already built
That years-long delay is hard to justify and incredibly frustrating
Starlink will give many more people another way to access high-speed internet, especially in places where fibre and mobile networks struggle to reach
And that makes the situation even harder to understand when Digital India itself is built around broadband access and closing connectivity gaps
If the goal is really to bring more Indians online, Starlink should not still be sitting on the sidelines after nearly five years