Aniket PujariStarlink’s service will be marketed in India through Airtel. However, the Bharti group company, in its exchange filing on Tuesday, did not indicate the launch—it is a pre-emptive agreement between the two companies.
Airtel already has a joint venture agreement with UK-based satellite operator OneWeb. While OneWeb’s infrastructure will be used to offer connectivity to enterprises, SpaceX-owned Starlink will provide services to consumers directly, two senior executives aware of the development at Airtel said.
Dubbed a ‘battle of the billionaires,’ the impending launch of satellite internet in India has continued for nearly two years. Ambani’s Reliance Jio has written to the Centre multiple times seeking spectrum auction—a format that was abolished with the passing of the Telecommunications Act, 2023.
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The Starlink launch will, however, have to wait till the company procures an operating licence from the ministry of communications. Also pending is the allocation of satellite spectrum for operators in India—which is expected by June, Mint reported on 5 March.
The Starlink agreement will “enhance the ability to bring world-class high-speed broadband to even the most remote parts of India, ensuring that every individual, business, and community has reliable internet”, Airtel’s managing director Gopal Vittal said in a statement.
Gwynne Shotwell, chief operating officer of SpaceX, added that “working with (Airtel) to complement (its) direct offering makes great sense for our business”.
Industry executives said Airtel’s move was “a clear sign of intent” against Reliance Jio, which has its own Jio ‘SpaceFiber’ satellite internet service for consumers.
“Starlink right now is a brand which has a lot of interest—in part due to Musk’s fame, and the rest due to it being a global brand already serving various nations. So far, Airtel’s play was largely enterprise-centric only—through OneWeb, they did not plan to operate a consumer offering,” a senior industry executive who consults both Jio and Airtel told Mint, requesting anonymity.
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“The Starlink partnership makes Airtel a direct rival to Jio yet again—and one could even say that the move might ever so slightly tip the scales in Airtel’s favour due to Starlink’s brand presence and awareness,” the executive said.
To be sure, Starlink’s impending launch in India has worried all incumbents.
On 8 March, Airtel, Jio and Kumar Mangalam Birla-backed Vodafone-Idea Ltd wrote to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) seeking parity of spectrum pricing and regulatory requirements for satcom services and on-ground terrestrial networks. Their demand for a “level playing field”, industry stakeholders said, is in response to the possibility of Starlink and Kuiper offering services in India.
“There is a certain amount of scepticism and concern among India’s telcos because this is an industry that has seen heavy capital infusion from the likes of Jio and Airtel—and is not used to seeing a foreign disruptor enter the space,” said Siddhant Cally, telecom research analyst and market researcher Counterpoint India. “In the long run, the representation for reduced spectrum pricing may not hold fort since satcom as a sector is different from terrestrial networks.”
T.V. Ramachandran, president of industry body Broadband India Forum (BIF), said satcom services “will connect the unconnected”—and are thus “intrinsically different in nature” than terrestrial networks. A similar lens of regulation, therefore, may not work for the sector.
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Musk, on Sunday, said on his social media platform X that “fair competition would be much appreciated” in India’s satcom industry—a statement that the analyst cited above said “may hold stronger ground, now that Airtel is involved in the marketing of Starlink in the country”.
However, the agreement “does not mention exclusivity anywhere, implying that for both Starlink and Airtel, there’s nothing that would restrict either brand from exploring other partnership avenues in this sector,” said a veteran industry consultant, requesting anonymity since he works with each of the three parties involved.
However, the consultant said, “satcom services by Starlink will be expensive, and apart from a small percentage of the elite few with palatial establishments, you can’t really expect anyone to subscribe to internet services that are nearly 20x the price of the average mobile or at-home internet line”.
“By FY27, satellite internet is unlikely to cross $100 million in net revenue,” he estimated. “The core factor behind the Airtel-Starlink-Jio tussle is in optics, and the marketing rights of who has the full stack of services—and who does not.”
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