Starlink Faces High-Cost and Capacity Limit Challenges in India

By Pune Media On Jul 29, 2025

Satellite communication player Starlink has limited capacity in terms of how many subscribers it can have on its network and the speeds it can offer, Minister of State for Communications Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar said, according to an Economic Times report. Sekhar mentioned that Starlink will only be able to provide 2 million connections and internet speeds of up to 200 Mbps.

This is largely because of Starlink’s capacity limitations, as a result of which each district in the country will only be able to get around 40-50,000 connections, Sekhar explained. Further, he mentioned that the cost of installing and using satcom services will be relatively high, with monthly costs standing at around Rs 3000, making them not a viable option for every customer.

Sekhar’s comments came on the sidelines of the review meeting that he and the Minister of Communications, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, had with BSNL officials about the company’s progress. Only a few weeks before this meeting, Starlink had completed the permission process for providing satcom services in India. It has now received approvals from both the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and the Department of Telecommunications via the Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) license. The only hindrance in the company’s way to provide satcom services at this point, as with other authorised players, is spectrum allocation.

The level playing field debate between satcom and telecom:

For a long time now, the policy conversation around satellite communication has been focused on whether the entry of satcom players will adversely affect the years of investments telecom companies have made towards setting up network infrastructure. Concerns about the level playing field first stemmed from the suggestions around administrative allocation of spectrum to satcom players, as opposed to the auction process that telcos go through. It later shifted to demands to price satcom spectrum differently for ‘traditional’ satcom service offerings such as satcom service for rural and remote areas, defence purposes, etc., and higher costs for services in urban/semi-urban areas.

Despite this push, in May this year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) settled the regulatory stance on the matter and said that there are no level playing field concerns between the two types of service providers. The regulator argued that technical limitations and user costs make it hard for level playing field issues to emerge between the two players anytime soon.

Are satellite services even viable?

Based on the restrictions Sekhar mentioned on connection numbers and speeds, it is unclear whether offering these services in India would even be a viable option for players like Starlink. This is especially concerning given the argument that satcom will fill a major connectivity gap in rural and remote areas. If each connection could cost the user around Rs 3000 monthly, the average rural customer may not be the demographic that Satcom will target. In a conversation with MediaNama, a telecom industry source had previously pointed out that the service would be more suited for business users who set up operations in a remote area, say a hotel on top of a hill, or for defence/maritime use cases.

For You

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}

_{Aggregated From –}

_{Source link}