Jobaaj Stories
Certain reports have suggested that billionaire Elon Musk's satellite communications company 'Starlink' is in talks with the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to apply for a license to provide Satcom services in the country.
Starlink is a venture by the world's richest man, Mr. Elon Musk, which aims to sell telecom and internet services to its customers via its large fleet of private satellites currently in Earth's orbit.
Adani green acquires 3 SPVs from Inox Green, read why
Starlink currently has over 2,000 fully functional satellites orbiting the earth. The company offers its services in 32 countries but still faces a backlog of prospective customers waiting to receive equipment and avail of its services. It offers a latency of 20-40 milliseconds & the internet speeds vary between 50 Mbps to 150 Mbps.
Early in November 2021, Starlink opened pre-bookings for offering internet services in India. The company was accepting bookings from customers for a deposit of $99 per customer. It also claimed that it received around 5,000 orders.
Its Indian subsidiary, Starlink Satellite Communications Pvt. Ltd., had appointed Sanjay Bhargava as a director. The company was planning for an April 2022 rollout and targeting 200,000 devices by December 2022, but the government intervened. The DoT warned the company against taking further bookings, to get a license before offering the service, and asked people not to buy the service.
“Fresh talks have started with Starlink, they could soon apply for a regular licence (GMPCS licence) to offer satellite-based communication services in India. Currently, they are focusing on developing their team in India.” DoT officials were quoted in the report.
Companies are required to obtain a Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) license from the government in order to offer satellite-based communication services. The company is expected to apply for the license, which has a 20-year expiration, within a month.
If Starlink succeeds in acquiring the license, it would be facing competition against Bharti Group-backed OneWeb & Jio Satellite Communication, an arm of Jio Communications, who have already applied for the license, to compete in the Indian Satcom market, which is estimated to be worth $13 billion by 2025.
In June 2022, certain reports suggested that Elon Musk was thinking of an IPO for the Satcom company. The IPO was reportedly 3-4 years away but the same was not confirmed.
Article by Aman Agarwal.
This news piece is brought to you in association with Jobaaj.com
