Musk’s Starlink to launch in India through Airtel

Telco giant Airtel Tuesday announced a partnership with SpaceX to launch Starlink’s high-speed satellite internet services in India — years after Elon Musk’s company made its first moves to enter the country, the world’s second-largest internet market after China. Importantly, the deal is not a roll-out plan. Services are subject to SpaceX receiving regulatory clearance from IN-SPACe and the Department of Telecommunications to sell Starlink in the country, the telco said in its press statement (PDF). That caveat is an important one, since SpaceX has already had its knuckles rapped once before for essentially beginning a service roll out before it had received any license: in 2022, the company ended up having to refund preorders of equipment after the government called it out for “booking/rendering the satellite internet service” before getting the necessary licenses. It’s understood that SpaceX has yet to get those approvals for multiple reasons, including security and privacy issue ... Read full article.