India Watches As Ambani-Musk Battle Brews

India-West News Desk

NEW DELHI – Elon Musk’s Starlink is preparing to enter India’s internet market, setting the stage for a potential shake-up in a sector currently dominated by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel, and the Indian government owned BSNL.

As Starlink awaits final security clearances to offer satellite broadband services, which means approval will hinge on meeting strict data localization and encryption requirements to protect Indian users’ data.

Globally, Starlink’s pricing ranges widely, from $10 per month in Africa to up to $120 in the United States. It remains unclear if Musk will adopt a similar pricing model in India, a market where internet costs are among the lowest in the world. Meanwhile, Reliance Jio already has the necessary approvals to launch its own satellite broadband service but has yet to move forward. Ambani’s initial rollout of Jio broadband had famously offered services free of charge, a strategy Musk might consider to quickly capture market share in India.

Reliance Jio, India’s market leader, commands over 14 million wired broadband subscribers and nearly 500 million mobile internet users, with Airtel close behind at nearly 300 million subscribers. Both companies have invested heavily, with Reliance spending over $20 billion on spectrum acquisitions, only to face the possibility of losing customers to the rapidly advancing satellite technology Starlink brings.

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