A year after its licence, Starlink still can’t sell in India
Starlink has an Indian licence, 20 gateway sites and local data controls, and still cannot sell a connection. The hold sits with a home-ministry security review and an unpriced spectrum charge, while the mobile groups waiting on the same desk already run the market.
Starlink is licensed in more than 165 countries. In India it still cannot sell a connection.
The company applied in November 2022. The Department of Telecommunications issued a Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite licence in June 2025. IN-SPACe authorised the Gen-1 constellation in July.
Starlink has provisional spectrum for trials, and memorandums with Airtel and Jio. At India Mobile Congress on Wednesday, Starlink vice-president Lauren Dreyer said the company had built 20 gateway sites and hundreds of antennas, and set the network up so Indian user data stays in India.
The file now sits with the Ministry of Home Affairs. A junior telecom minister said this week the telecom department has finished its part. Security clearance has to come before Starlink can seek the spectrum it would actually use. A wholly owned SpaceX subsidiary also still needs foreign-investment approval. India allows 100 percent FDI in satellite services. The approval has not been granted.
On Wednesday Elon Musk said Starlink was being blocked by “certain oligarchs” to keep a “monopolistic chokehold on the Indian people.” He did not name them. The Ministry of Communications replied the next morning. The process, it said, is fair and non-discriminatory. All three licence-holders are at the same stage: Starlink, Bharti-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, and Jio Satellite. Each must clear security before spectrum.
The reply is narrowly true. None of the three is on the market. OneWeb has held Indian authorisations for years. Jio Satellite belongs to the country’s largest telecom group. Amazon’s Leo does not yet have a licence. India has more than a billion internet subscriptions and no commercial satellite-broadband service.
The security rules issued in 2025 explain the wait. Indian traffic cannot pass through a foreign gateway or be copied abroad. Interception equipment has to sit in India and connect to government monitoring systems.
Operators must give agencies real-time terminal locations and be able to cut service by area or user. In June, Bloomberg reported that home-ministry agencies had held back Starlink’s final nod after terminals showed up in Iran, where the service is not licensed. Officials wanted to know whether a US operator would follow Indian orders if another government wanted the opposite.
Starlink has answered with an India-only design. The clearance has not come.
Spectrum is the other open item. Reliance Jio spent years arguing that satellite airwaves should be auctioned, as mobile spectrum is. Starlink argued they are shared, and assigned administratively almost everywhere else. An auction would have raised the price of entry for a new network.
The Telecommunications Act 2023 picked administrative assignment. On 3 September the Digital Communications Commission backed a charge of 5 percent of adjusted gross revenue, 4 percent in notified remote areas. TRAI had recommended 4 percent. Starlink had asked for under 1 percent. Cabinet approval is still pending.
Two of the three companies waiting on the same security desk are tied to the groups that already run India’s mobile market. Both have signed up to work with Starlink. Jio is also building its own low-Earth-orbit constellation. A foreign service that can reach a village without a tower is either a partner or a rival. For now it is neither.
The uncovered map is not Mumbai. It is the border districts, the islands, the hills, the places where a tower does not pay. Starlink has the licence, the gateways and the local data setup the rules asked for. New Delhi has the forms. It does not yet have a date.
