Earlier this month, SpaceX and India’s largest telecommunications company, Reliance’s Jio Platforms, announced a partnership to deploy Starlink’s services in India. In a now-deleted post on social media, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Indian minister of railways, information and broadcasting, and electronics and information technology, welcomed Starlink to India, noting its usefulness for railway projects. The announcement comes less than a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, DC, where he met US President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who is also the head of SpaceX.
Longtime observers of India’s telecommunications market may have been surprised by this announcement. Telecoms was a state monopoly until the 1990s. Even today, after waves of liberalization and relaxation of foreign direct investment requirements, it remains one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the country. This market is also notoriously cut-throat, with the past ten year years seeing intensifying competition over India’s booming customer base—one of the largest and fastest growing in the world—between its two largest players, Reliance Jio and Airtel.
But Starlink’s entry into India, albeit on New Delhi’s terms, should not be a surprise. It is an example of India’s hybrid approach to tech sovereignty, which favors co-development and diversification, both in its private and bilateral partnerships.
India’s connectivity challenge
With its drive to bring its billion-plus population online, India has ample reasons to welcome Starlink. India is the world’s second-largest internet-connected population, just behind China, with around 955 million broadband users as of December 2024. Of these users, 95 percent are mobile broadband subscribers. This means that India’s digital economy is “mobile-first,” with substantial gaps in wired broadband, especially in rural areas. In other words, as one moves away from major urban centers, the internet infrastructure for industrial applications remains underdeveloped. The reliability of wireless connections is patchy at best, and fixed broadband speeds are dismally low.
BharatNet (BBNL), an initiative housed under the public sector telecommunications company BSNL, seeks to bridge the rural connectivity gap by laying a National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) connecting 625,000 villages. As of December 2024, 692,000 kilometers of optical fiber cable has been laid as part of this undertaking. NOFN is, however, several years behind schedule, having missed its 2014, 2015, 2019, 2023, and 2025 deadlines. The project has been held up by launch delays, issues over right-of-way rules, complex terrain, pandemic-related disruptions, and the deterioration of some of the already laid cable.
The tiger enters orbit
Enter satellite internet. BBNL has run pilot tests for satellite services, with the end goal of connecting seven thousand gram panchayats. (Gram panchayats are village-level administrative units, governing one or more villages.) Private-sector players such as Airtel, in partnership with French satellite operator Eutelsat, have also announced commercial satellite services in India. The investment required for satellite internet is front-loaded and entails funding for satellite manufacturing, launch, and ground support. Amazon, for instance, expects to spend $7.4 billion on satellite launch and related services for its subsidiary, Kuiper Systems, LLC. IRIS, the European Union’s proposed 290 satellite constellations, has cost more than eleven billion dollars.
Once the supporting infrastructure is operational, the investment needed to set up ground infrastructure to receive satellite internet, whether as an individual consumer or an enterprise, is less intensive: in Starlink’s case, these are “gateways” that serve as a relay point for several terminals, briefcase-sized units that can be set up anywhere with a clear view of the sky. This architecture also enables remote and rural areas without optical fiber cable to receive internet. Starlink claims that its customers can expect download speeds of up to one hundred megabits per second. For context, the median fixed-broadband speed in the country stands at sixty-four megabits per second as of February of this year, which is well below the global average of ninety-eight megabits per second.
India has 108 satellites in orbit, the seventh-most of any country in the world according to satellite tracking service N2YO. Its satellite and launch infrastructure are partly developed indigenously by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and partly supported by partners in countries such as the United States and France. In October 2022, for instance, ISRO launched thirty-six OneWeb satellites. In November 2024, ISRO launched its homegrown satellite GSAT-N2, for the first time via SpaceX, to support satellite internet services with a throughput of forty-eight gigabits per second.
The country’s two largest private telecommunications companies, Reliance Jio and Airtel, have both entered into partnerships with Starlink, despite their initial opposition to what they perceived as unfair competition from the US-based space company.
Playing on an uneven field
As with all its tech engagements, India leans into strategic autonomy in its bid to build out satellite internet connectivity for its population of nearly 1.5 billion. “Autonomy” in the Indian context means the ability to act in its national interest with minimal external pressure, while maximizing the utility of its individual foreign partnerships. Given that approach, the Starlink partnership may at first seem surprising. However, taken in conjunction with the breadth of indigenous initiatives and partnerships in the satellite internet space, what emerges is a picture of pragmatism, where access alone is not the deciding factor. Diversification and competition, with the government laying the groundwork where gaps exist, have driven India’s progress on increasing internet access and speed for its citizens.
In 2016, for instance, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) opted to effectively ban Facebook’s Free Basics, which would have offered limited access to the internet for free, on the grounds that it would create an uneven playing field and harm net neutrality. Given Starlink’s overwhelming dominance in the satellite internet space, TRAI is limiting its license to five years as opposed to the twenty-year permit Musk had reportedly asked for. India’s two largest telecommunications companies have supported TRAI’s proposal. But they have also diversified their partnerships with alternative suppliers, such as France’s Eutelsat and Luxembourg’s SES.
Some decision makers in government and leaders in India’s private sector are likely to view SpaceX’s growing role as a geopolitical force with skepticism. For instance, Starlink was vital in keeping Ukraine online after Russia invaded the country, but it has become a political bargaining chip under the current US administration. Similarly, SpaceX has reportedly pressured its Taiwanese suppliers to reshore their operations. That’s why India’s partnership with Starlink reads as a hedge rather than a whole-hearted endorsement. Delhi is acknowledging the company’s dominance without granting it full control of India’s satellite internet market.
By maintaining a diverse portfolio of partnerships and regulatory safeguards, India is ensuring that its connectivity strategy remains both sovereign and adaptable. As satellite internet becomes an increasingly contested domain, India’s pragmatism may serve as a model for other nations navigating the intersection of technology, geopolitics, and economic self-reliance. India’s approach to satellite internet reflects a careful balancing act—one that prioritizes resilience over reliance and competition over convenience.
Trisha Ray is an associate director and resident fellow at the ’s GeoTech Center.
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Image: The Starlink logo is displayed on a mobile phone in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on March 23, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto)
