Starlink not getting India license quickly might be partly because of Verizon

While Starlink is present in many countries already, one geography where it has faced tremendous trouble is India. The satellite-based internet service provider wants to reach rural and underserved areas to extend the benefits of digitalisation to everyone. A move, that the government should back, is facing issues due to the regulatory environment. Since Starlink is a US-based company, the Indian government needs to know the companies with a stake in it. The rule seems justified, for all we know, a Chinese company could have a stake in Starlink and might be able to access the data stored by it.

SpaceX, the parent company of Starlink, declared to the Indian government (via ET) that none of its stakeholders are neighbours of India. This means, that China or Pakistan are out of the question here. SpaceX can’t give the exact names of the investors because it is an unlisted company.

But how does Verizon come into the mix here? Well, Verizon Communications, last year, while applying to renew its internet service provider license in India, told the Indian government that none of its stakeholders are neighbours of India. But later, that turned out to be untrue, putting a big question over whether the statements that these US companies offer to the Indian government, are true or not.

That is why, the process for Starlink to acquire a satcom (satellite communications) license in India has been delayed further. We (at TelecomTalk), have discussed this before, for a company like Starlink, offering services and building infrastructure isn’t as hard as getting regulatory approval to offer services in different geographies.

Starlink is still trying to get the process completed as fast as possible to ensure that it can roll out services as fast as possible.  Telecomtalk