Starlink India launch will cover 2 million subscribers at a price that won’t threaten local providers

Starlink satellite Internet antennas are coming to India. (Image source: SpaceX)

Starlink is launching its satellite Internet coverage for India soon, and the number of its subscribers there could quickly match all US customers combined. The monthly Starlink subscription price in India, however, will be much lower.

When Starlink launches in India, its monthly subscription price won’t be the rumored $10 equivalent that analysts predicted could decimate local telcos and bring a rapid expansion of the satellite Internet service’s subscription base.

The rollout of the Starlink India service with all the accompanying ground gateways and antenna sets is going to be quite expensive, according to the Indian communications ministry. The upfront and equipment costs are, in fact, so high that Starlink will only be able to offer its services in India for the equivalent of $35 a month after launch.

That is a far cry from the ten bucks a month hopes that would’ve seen it rival the government’s rural providers like BSNL. That is why the Minister claims that “Starlink can have only 20 lakh customers in India and offer up to 200 Mbps speed,” concluding that the price and speed of the Starlink services in India won’t be a threat to the current telecom services there.

These are the numbers that the rest of the global Starlink subscribers need to hear, two as adding many millions of customers more would put a strain on the network at higher speeds, despite that SpaceX is now adding 5 Tbps of carrying capacity each week.

The Starlink satellite Internet network will be able to take more subscribers and provide much faster speeds without affecting the experience of existing users starting next year. SpaceX will begin to add its V3 satellites by next summer with the Starship 3 rocket that is currently undergoing launch testing.

They are larger and add ten times the capacity of the current V2 edition, while the supported downlink speeds are increased by a factor of 24. The current Standard Kit, however, doesn’t support the gigabit speeds that a V3 satellite network will bring, so Starlink recently issued a pricey Performance dish that does, though its $1,999 tag is mainly targeting enterprise customers.

Daniel Zlatev – Senior Tech Writer – 1819 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021

Wooed by tech since the industrial espionage of Apple computers and the times of pixelized Nintendos, Daniel went and opened a gaming club when personal computers and consoles were still an expensive rarity. Nowadays, fascination is not with specs and speed but rather the lifestyle that computers in our pocket, house, and car have shoehorned us in, from the infinite scroll and the privacy hazards to authenticating every bit and move of our existence.

_{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.}