Musk's Starlink likely to get nod to launch services in India by next week

Elon Musk (Illustration: Moneycontrol)

Elon Musk's Starlink is expected to receive approval from the Indian government by early next week after it provided clarification to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) about its shareholding pattern, sources said.

With this, Starlink will become the third company after Jio Satellite Communications and OneWeb to receive such licenses from the government.

Sources added that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) may issue the letter of intent (LoI) to Starlink by Wednesday.

A query sent to SpaceX didn't elicit any response.

The department is preparing a note for approval by the telecom Secretary, Neeraj Mittal, and the Minister of Communications, Ashwani Vaishnav. Once they give a nod, the department's Satellite Communications Wing (SCW) will issue the approval to Musk's company.

Mittal is currently in the US for the PanIIT 2024 Event in Washington DC, and the minister is in Davos for the World Economic Forum.

In November 2022, Musk's Starlink initiated the process of applying for the global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) license.

However, in 2021, the company faced issues with the Indian government for accepting pre-orders for its terminals at a nominal fee. Although the company planned to conduct trials for its satcom services in India, these plans did not come to fruition as the Indian government directed Starlink to refund the fees as it lacked the necessary permissions to operate in India.