Starlink on Tuesday received an authorisation to operate its broadband satellite constellation over India from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), the body revealed in an update to its website on Wednesday. IN-SPACe comes under the Department of Space. This is the second major approval that Starlink has received in India, after it received a Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) authorisation last month from the Department of Telecommunications.
While Starlink in particular and satellite broadband in general have been an object of fascination and interest by the government, security and ownership concerns among government officials have posed significant barriers to the firm starting operations in India. Shortly before issuing Starlink a GMPCS authorisation, the DoT issued a list of additional security conditions for satellite broadband operators, requiring them to disallow Indian-registered satellite broadband connections from working abroad and vice versa.
The IN-SPACe authorisation remains, however, a step in the right direction for the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, which runs Starlink. The constellation would be able to immediately beam an internet connection to spots in rural and remote regions where even faint mobile coverage is not available. While the overall volume of spectrum available to Starlink and its pricing — estimated to be around ₹60,000 for the hardware, and ₹3,500 in monthly fees, before accounting for government levies that may push up the price — make it a tricky proposition at scale, the government has spoken of leveraging satellite internet in remote government offices.
The IN-SPACe authorisation grants Starlink gateways permission to operate uplink frequencies in the 27.5-29.1 and 29.5-30 gigahertz (GHz) bands, and downlink beams in 17.8-18.6 and 18.8-19.3 GHz. Individual users will connect up in 14.0-14.5 GHz and 10.7-12.7 GHz. The assignment of this spectrum by the DoT remains pending, before which commercial operations will not be able to start.
In the neighbourhood, Starlink is already available in Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the latter having approved it this month.
