Starlink gears up for India launch with telco, data centre tie-ups

Starlink in India

Elon Musk’s satellite broadband venture Starlink has begun groundwork in India, holding advanced talks with telecom operators, fibre players, internet exchanges, and data centre companies to build the terrestrial infrastructure required for its rollout, the Economic Times reported.

According to the report, discussions are underway with Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Tata Communications on the telco front, as well as data centre operators like Sify Technologies, STT, Equinix, and CtrlS Datacenters.

Internet exchange providers DE-CIX and Extreme, along with fibre infrastructure companies such as Microscan, are also in the mix. Analysts estimate Starlink’s initial investment in India at around Rs 500 crore.

The company has already secured clearances from Indian regulators and been allotted trial bandwidth, ET said, citing people aware of the matter. Letters of intent are expected to be sent to partners this month.

Starlink has also finalised 17 locations across India for ground stations, which will be key to integrating its low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites with terrestrial fibre and data networks. These hubs are needed since Indian regulations mandate that all downlink traffic be stored and routed locally.

ET quoted sources as saying that early tie-ups with fibre and data centre providers indicate Starlink is “gearing for scale,” especially with competition heating up from Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, Reliance Jio’s satcom joint venture with SES, and upcoming players like Amazon’s Project Kuiper and Apple’s satcom partner Globalstar.

Last week, DE-CIX confirmed its partnership with Starlink, while Extreme IXP said the satellite operator has already connected to its Mumbai port.

“The integration will be crucial for maintaining high-speed throughput, especially for latency-sensitive applications like streaming, video conferencing, and online gaming,” Sudhir Kunder, chief business officer of DE-CIX India, told ET.

India’s space economy is projected to hit $44 billion by 2033, expanding its global market share to 8% from 2% currently, according to the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre.