Elon Musk wants to bring Starlink to India, and he is not being quiet about it. On October 7, he said unnamed “oligarchs” were blocking the service to protect their hold on the market. The next day he asked whether Mukesh Ambani was the “real boss of India,” and on October 9 he posted a message addressed to “Prime Minister Ambani.” The posts got a lot of attention, but they leave out a bigger question. If Starlink gets every approval, can it actually win customers in a country where internet is already cheap?
Let us start with the approvals. Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite Communications all have licences from the Department of Telecommunications. The space regulator IN-SPACe also gave Starlink a five-year authorisation in July 2025 to use its first-generation satellites over India. On October 8, the Ministry of Communications said the three are at broadly the same stage, and each still needs security clearance and spectrum before it can start commercial service. Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia also rejected Musk’s claim of a monopoly. On spectrum, the government had earlier taken Starlink’s side. Jio wanted it auctioned, while Starlink wanted it assigned by the government, and the government agreed with Starlink.
The rivalry is also more complicated than it looks. In March 2025, both Jio and Airtel signed deals with SpaceX to sell and support Starlink equipment in India, once the government approves. So the companies Musk is criticising have agreed to work with him. Starlink says it has done its part. At the India Mobile Congress, SpaceX executive Lauren Dreyer said the company had built 20 gateway sites and hundreds of antennas in India. On October 16, it repeated that it was ready to connect India, but reports that day said government clearance was still pending.
Satellite internet works differently from normal broadband. Starlink uses thousands of small satellites that orbit relatively close to Earth. A broadband company can add cables or towers when demand grows. A satellite service cannot do this easily, because its capacity is shared among all users in the same coverage area, and adding satellites takes a lot of time and money. This limit affects both price and speed.
Price is the next problem. Starlink has not announced official Indian pricing, but Bangladesh offers a clue. There, the residential plan costs Tk 6,000 a month, the Residential Lite plan costs Tk 4,200, and the equipment costs Tk 47,000. In July 2025, Minister of State for Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said the upfront cost would be high and the monthly cost may be around ₹3,000. That is hard to defend against Jio and Airtel, which have fibre networks in cities and towns and bundle broadband with entertainment and other services, giving customers fewer reasons to switch.
Bangladesh also shows how slowly a service like this can grow. Starlink got its licence there on April 29, 2025, and launched on May 20. By September 30, 2025, it had 1,862 customers. According to the telecom regulator, the number reached 5,389 by May 2026, mostly business users. The regulator’s chairman called Starlink “an expensive service.” For comparison, Nigeria had more than 59,500 active customers by March 2025, about two years after launch, and Kenya had 17,066 after 20 months. In Bangladesh, the reseller BSCL has signed a deal with Grameenphone to offer Starlink to businesses in remote energy fields, coastal operations and border zones, as a backup connection.
India has also set its own limit. Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said Starlink can have only 20 lakh customers in the country, with speeds of up to 200 Mbps, and that this would not affect telecom services. Government officials have linked the cap to Starlink’s current capacity. Some media reports, citing PTI, say it also protects BSNL and private operators, especially in rural areas where Starlink would be most useful. Either way, the cap shows how the government sees Starlink: as an addition to existing networks, not a replacement.
So where could Starlink succeed? Its best chance is in places where cables and towers are hard to build or easy to damage, such as hill and border areas, islands and coastal regions. It could also serve banks, shipping companies, airlines and government offices that want a second connection when the first one fails. These customers can pay more for reliability, which makes them more valuable than a typical home user. Bangladesh points the same way, since most of its Starlink customers are businesses.
That may not sound like a total victory, but it can still be a good business. Starlink can enter India once the government clears it. Winning is a different matter. It will need to price its plans carefully, work within the 20 lakh limit and show that it offers something Jio, Airtel and BSNL cannot. Musk’s posts focus on the approval fight, but the harder test begins only after that fight is over.
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