Elon Musk’s Starlink Faces Resistance in India from Facebook, Amazon and others

Serial Entrepreneur, Scientist, Engineer and Chief of Tesla, Elon Musk’s venture SpaceX Technologies’ satellite internet service- Starlink last month rolled out pre-orders for beta version of it’s services in India for a fully refundable deposit of $99 (Rs 7,000) from 2022 to much cheer from many Indian internet users. However, Broadband India Forum (BIF) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to prohibit SpaceX Technologies from pre-selling the beta version of its Starlink satellite internet services in India.

To back its claim BIF said Starlink doesn’t have its own ground or earth stations in India nor satellite frequency authorisation from ISRO and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) required to offer beta services in the country.
Broadband India Forum is an industry body of broadband ecosystem companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Hughes, Microsoft etc.