News
A potential tie-up with the mobile operator Vodafone Idea could give the billionaire the foothold he needs to rapidly launch Starlink services within the country
As we enter 2024, Elon Musk’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications constellation Starlink continues to swell, now totalling more than 5,500 orbiting devices. Starlink’s commercial services are available in over 60 countries the world, offering download speeds ranging from 30Mbps to exceeding 220Mbps, depending on location, to the company’s roughly 1.5 million subscribers.
A map of Starlink’s current availability can be found here.
Notably missing from this map, however, is one of the largest and arguably most lucrative markets in the world: India.
Musk has been battling to gain Starlink access to India for years now. The satellite company initially sought to launch commercial services in India back in 2021, notably taking deposits for a large number of preorders before receiving the necessary government approvals. Naturally, this transgression was met with a slap on the wrist, with SpaceX ordered to return the pre-order deposits and await the completion of the regulatory process.
Since then, the satellite company has been lobbying the government to streamline its approval processes, even going so far as to suggest the government should ditch plans for a satellite spectrum auction and simply allocate the spectrum directly.
Dates for this potential spectrum auction and the completion of Starlink’s approval process are still uncertain, leaving the satellite giant without any real foothold in what recently became the world’s most populous country.
However, media reports last week suggest this may not be the case for long. On Friday, BusinessWorld published a story suggesting that Elon Musk could be looking to buy a stake in mobile operator Vodafone Idea (Vi), in part to provide a foundation from which to offer Starlink services in the future.
The news sent the beleaguered Vi’s shares rocketing up 21%, the highest they had been since the start of 2022.
Vi has been struggling to find fresh investment for years, with the company wilting under the near-constant pressure of government debts. At the start of 2022, the Indian government agreed to covert a portion of this debt into equity in Vi, giving the state a 33.1% stake in the business. However, new debt deadlines looming on the horizon have seen Vi scrambling to secure additional capital from various sources, with a handful of financing deals expected to conclude in Q1 this year.
Indeed, there have been even rumours that the government could look to takeover Vi entirely to prevent the country’s telecoms market from becoming a duopoly between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.
Thus, potential investment at scale from Elon Musk could be very attractive for Vi, coming ahead of crucial debt repayment deadlines and allowing the operator to accelerate its mobile network rollout.
It is worth noting here that, when it comes to partnering with major Indian telcos, Vi could be Musk’s only option.
Bharti Airtel’s parent company Bharti Enterprises was one of the key investors that rescued UK satellite firm OneWeb from bankruptcy back in 2020, alongside the British government, and the company still retains a roughly 20% stake in the business. OneWeb was granted permission to launch commercial services in India in November last year.
Reliance Jio, on the other hand, formed a joint venture with satellite player SES last year, aiming to use the latter’s medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites to provide a data service dubbed JioSpaceFiber. Having demonstrated the technology’s capabilities in October last year, Jio is now seeking regulatory approval, which could be granted as early as this month.
Today, however, rumours of a potential tie-up between Vi and Starlink have been quashed, with Vi releasing a statement denying that discussions are taking place.
“We would like to submit that the company is not in any such discussion with the named party. We are not aware of the basis of the said news item,” said the operator in a statement.
Both Vi and Starlink will continue to navigate the turbulent Indian telecoms market alone, at least for now.
Want to keep up with all the latest telecoms news from around the world? Click here to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter
Also in the news:
Indian govt quashes rumours it will take over Vodafone Idea
OneWeb gets satellite approval from India
Ericsson launches ‘India 6G’ project
