Elon Musk-owned satellite communications (satcom) service provider Starlink has approached the Indian government for permission to import its landing station equipment that allows satellite signals to be routed into terrestrial internet networks. These are required for setting up the ground infrastructure necessary to test its services in India.
Sources said that the government may take a considered view on the import of such equipment, which are critical for launching the services.
“Starlink has approached the government including Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to import equipment for its ground infrastructure for testing, after which it can do the testing, before the launch of the services for public use,” a government official said.
Other players
Till now, three players—Starlink, Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, Reliance Jio’s joint venture with SES, and Globalstar—have received the Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) services licence needed to provide satcom services in the country.
However, with no spectrum allocation yet, as the DoT and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) are still deciding on the reserve price mechanism, the operators will not be able to start services. Starlink is still a few steps behind the other two from even setting up ground stations, which is crucial to check the network before a commercial launch. The three companies will also be competing with each other in this new space of communication technology. The government will be providing spectrum through the administrative route on a first-come-first-served basis.
Equipment for setting up the ground stations include large phased-array antennas housed in secure facilities that connect the satellite constellation with the terrestrial internet backbone. These stations receive data from the satellites and send it.
These stations receive data from the satellites and send it to data centres on earth, which have existing fiber optic connections and each ground station serves as a vital link in the Starlink network, ensuring users can access the Internet by bridging the satellite-to-Internet gap.
Sources said Starlink has not yet finalised for its ground station locations also, and till then it is taking the government’s permission to import the required equipment for these ground stations.
Bharti Airtel has established two satcom ground stations in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, and is preparing for the launch once government approves for spectrum allocation.
Meanwhile, Airtel and Jio in March this year, have signed agreements with Musk’s company to distribute Starlink’s satcom services in India. The two Indian companies will make Starlink solutions available through their retail outlets and online stores. Additionally, they are evaluating other areas of cooperation to enhance India’s digital ecosystem by utilising their respective infrastructures.
Last week, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has also collaborated Starlink, for seamless Aadhaar-based customer verification.
