Elon Musk’s SpaceX is back in India, seeks DoT permit to launch Starlink – Times of India

As widely-speculated, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has joined the satellite internet race in the country. According to a report in Economic Times (ET), the company has applied to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for a global mobile personal communication by satellite services (GMPCS) licence to launch broadband-from-space services in India under its Starlink brand. As per the report, the US-based satcom company had earlier applied for an experimental licence but withdrew it later.
SpaceX is the third company to seek GMPCS permit in the country. The other two companies that have been granted GMPCS licences are Bharti Group-backed OneWeb and Reliance Jio Infocomm’s satellite arm, Jio Satellite Communications. Tata group satcom company Nelco; Canada’s Telesat; and e-commerce giant Amazon too are said to be eyeing to enter the space internet market in the country. However, none of these three have so far applied for the GMPCS licence. The licence is offered to the companies by the government, allowing them to offer satellite communication services in licensed service areas.

Licence does not mean that SpaceX can soon start services
Getting the licence does not mean that SpaceX is ready to roll out services in the country. There are other requisites. The company needs approval from the Department of Space and after that needs spectrum allocated for offering services. SpaceX will also need to establish in-country earth stations (satellite gateways) and deploy its global satellite bandwidth capacity in India. These clearances need to come from the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), a central regulatory body mandated to attract private capital in the space sector.
Why Starlink paused its India plans in 2021
Starlink had registered its business in India via a local unit, Starlink Satellite Communications. The company had started taking a token refundable booking amount from interested customers. However, DoT, under the Ministry of Communications, in December 2021, asked Starlink to refund money to all customers. The company was told to first get the necessary permissions required to offer satellite-based internet services. DoT told Starlink to stop “booking/rendering the satellite internet service” in India without a licence. Starlink later announced that it will apply for a commercial licence in India by January 31, 2022. But this never happened.