Elon Musk's Starlink has to comply with all rules for licence, says Union minister

The security guidelines state that a satellite communications company operating in India must store all data within the country only

Published on: Nov 12, 2024, 14:53:58 IST

By HT News Desk

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Union telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tueday said Elon Musk's Starlink will have to comply with all norms to get a licence for services in India. The minister said the satellite internet services provider is in process of completing all the requirements and they will get licence once they complete the process.

Union Minister for Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia during the 25th Meeting of the South Asian Telecommunication Regulators' Council, in New Delhi, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024 (Shahbaz Khan/PTI)

“They (Starlink) have to comply with all rules to get the licence. You have to look at it from a security perspective as well. They are in the process of doing it. Once all requirements are met, they will get the licence,” Jyotiraditya Scindia told reporters.

He was replying to a question on the status of the licence for Starlink.

Currently, the government has issued a licence to the joint venture of Bharti Group-backed OneWeb and Jio-SES, Jio Satellite Communications.

Also Read: Elon Musk's Starlink agrees to data security rules, satcom license application to move forward: Report

According to the report, Starlink had “in principle” committed to complying with these guidelines during recent meetings with the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). The report added that this was an important condition set by the government and also was a point of contention earlier in its entry.

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Starlink operates a constellation of satellites to provide low-cost satellite internet to remote locations, with SpaceX saying it eventually plans to have as many as 42,000 satellites in Starlink's mega-constellation, from the current 6,500.

Starlink and Jeff Bezos' Kuiper are both currently caught in a battle with private telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea. The telcos are expressing concerns and asserting that only auctioned satellite spectrum should be used for urban or “retail” consumers for a level playing field, as they got their spectrums through auctionsrather than through administrative allocations.

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HT News Desk
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