Elon Musk's Starlink to begin satellite internet trial in India soon; holds infrastructural talks with Jio, Airtel and others

Elon Musk's satellite internet service,

Starlink

, is preparing to launch the trial of its services in India. The world’s largest satellite broadband company has repiortedly started talks with major telecom and data center companies to build its terrestrial infrastructure. A report cited people aware of the matter to claim that the company is in advanced discussions with Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Tata Communications, data centre operators such as Sify Technologies, STT, Equinix and CtrlS Datacenters, internet exchange providers (IXP) like DE-CIX and Extreme as well as fibre infrastructure players including Microscan. These partnerships will help Starlink establish the necessary ground infrastructure to support its satellite connectivity at a large scale. Analysts estimate the initial capital expenditure for the project to be around Rs 500 crore, a report by the Economic Times (ET) added.

How Startlink is planning to operate in India

As per the report, Starlink is expected to issue letters of intent to the satcom partners this month. The US company has already secured all required approvals from Indian authorities and has also been allocated trial bandwidth, the ET report highlighted.

The Musk-owned company has also finalised 17 locations across the country for ground stations that will support direct-to-cell satellite connectivity, linking Starlink’s low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites with terrestrial fibre and data networks to deliver high-speed broadband.“Even as LEO satellites beam connectivity directly to user terminals, Indian regulations mandate that all downlink traffic be stored and routed locally, This makes ground stations, data centres, and internet exchanges central to the satcom ecosystem. Starlink’s early tie-ups with fibre and data centre providers show it is gearing for scale.” one person aware of the discussions said.Starlink is pursuing a partnership-led approach in India, with talks involving Airtel and Jio extending beyond distribution. Alongside initial marketing tie-ups with the two telcos, Starlink has also begun signing additional agreements, including a recent partnership with interconnection provider DE-CIX, the report mentioned.“The integration will be crucial for maintaining high-speed throughputs especially for latency-sensitive applications like streaming, video conferencing, and online gaming,” Sudhir Kunder, chief business officer of DE-CIX India said to ET. This company operates 36 points of presence (PoPs) in five cities, handling data throughput of 11Tbps.Meanwhile, Extreme IXP has also confirmed that Starlink is already connected to its Mumbai port.India’s space economy is projected to reach $44 billion by 2033, raising its global share to 8% from 2%. In the growing broadband-from-space market, Starlink will face competition from Eutelsat OneWeb, Reliance Jio-SES, Amazon Kuiper, and Apple’s partner Globalstar.