New Delhi: Starlink has spent years trying to get into India, and the past week showed that getting in may be the easier half of the job.
On Thursday, Reliance Industries put out a statement saying it has “never feared competition” and welcomes rivals in satellite communications, Starlink included, as long as everyone follows Indian law. It also noted that Jio’s own satellite services are still waiting on clearances. Starlink responded by saying it has worked with regulators and operators for more than five years. It said it has built dedicated systems and gateways in India meant to serve only Indian traffic. Then an account called NCIB Headquarters weighed in with a blunt post saying India doesn’t need Starlink and that national security can’t be traded for faster internet. I couldn’t confirm that account speaks for any government body, so I’d treat it as noise rather than policy. It did draw plenty of attention, though.
Here is what’s actually on record. Starlink received an operating licence in July 2025 but has yet to launch commercially. Bloomberg reported in June 2026 that the government had frozen approvals amid security concerns over the use of Starlink terminals. Musk then publicly asked why there was still no licence after five years of compliance. Minister of State Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani said the delay lies with the Home Ministry and is not company-specific, and officials said Starlink, Jio’s satellite arm and Eutelsat OneWeb are at broadly the same stage.
So will Starlink face more trouble once it’s cleared? Almost certainly, and I’d rank the likely problems like this.
Security comes first. Starlink has denied reports that its terminals were used by militants in Manipur, and says its beams over India remain switched off. Even so, once service is live, agencies will want lawful interception, local data handling and some way to control terminals that cross the border. Those conditions can be met, but they cost money and slow things down, and every incident will bring fresh scrutiny.
Politics is second. Musk’s jibes at Ambani turned a licensing question into a question about who has influence in India. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi joined in, and that kind of attention rarely helps a company waiting on government decisions. I’d guess the rhetoric is partly for show, but it does leave Starlink with fewer friends than it needs.
Third is the market. Jio says it has over 530 million customers and some of the cheapest data in the world. Satellite internet can’t compete on price in cities, so Starlink’s real market is remote areas, ships, aircraft and enterprise links. That’s a genuine opportunity, but a much smaller one than the headlines suggest. It also depends partly on Jio and Airtel, which signed distribution deals with SpaceX in March 2025 but are building satellite businesses of their own. Jio Platforms’ Akash Ambani has said India needs its own indigenous technology stack. Partners and rivals at once is an uncomfortable position.
Fourth, and this is my own reading, is capacity and pricing. A network of roughly 1,600 satellites and 23 ground stations is what local reports say Starlink has proposed for India. Whether that serves a country this large without congestion, at prices rural households can pay, is untested.
My honest view is that the licence fight made Starlink’s challenges visible but didn’t solve any of them. Approval, when it comes, probably arrives with strict conditions, and those conditions will define how the business works. Starlink doesn’t need to win a public argument with Reliance. It needs to convince Delhi, quietly and repeatedly, that it can be trusted with Indian data. That’s slower work, and a lot less fun to post about.
