Telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal has reportedly said that satellite communications (satcom) operator Starlink will have to seek a few more approvals from the telecom department (DoT) before commencing operations in India.
As per The Hindu businessline, Mittal said that the company has bagged the approval from the DoT for “commercial operations”. The secretary added that Starlink will still need “another couple of approvals” from the department.
“Once they apply for spectrum, they need to do the testing and then show compliance to the security conditions,” Mittal said. Responding to a question about the timeline for granting all requisite approvals for the company, he said, “Essentially it is in the hands of Starlink now. (The) government is not standing in the way”.
This comes days after communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the Elon Musk-led satcom company has received an unnamed licence from the ministry. With this, Starlink became the third company to get the licence in the country, after Airtel-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio SES.
On the question of Amazon Kuiper’s application for satcom licence, the telecom secretary said that the company is still a little far from approval.
“I think (the) application is in place, but I think it is a little distance from approval… I don’t think it (approvals for Kuiper’s application) is in our hands. They have to pursue it and come up with whatever gaps there are in the application,” he was quoted as saying.
Notably, the Centre is yet to formulate a policy on spectrum pricing. While Scindia previously said that the country will see the fastest rollout of the satcom network in the world, the Union government is still vetting the recommendations submitted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for satcom spectrum norms.
This comes even as competition continues to intensify in the local satcom space. While deep-pocked Indian conglomerates like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have made a beeline for the licence, global giants like Amazon and Apple vendor Globalstar, too, have filed applications for satcom licences in the country.
Earlier this year, Bharti Airtel and Jio Platforms also announced a partnership with SpaceX to offer Starlink’s broadband internet services to users in India.
Meanwhile, just a day ago, Vodafone Idea (Vi) also announced a partnership with US-based AST SpaceMobile to launch direct-to-device satellite broadband services. In effect, the collaboration will allow Vi users to access the internet on standard smartphones in areas with coverage gaps without the need for any specialised equipment.
Push For Telecom Startups
The telecom secretary made the comments while inaugurating the three-day long Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF) Symposium 2025 at IIT Madras in Chennai.
Addressing the gathering, Mittal said that more than 1,300 proposals have been received by the department for R&D funding under the fund so far. Of these, 120 projects have been approved with a funding of INR 500 Cr.
As per the ministry, INR 187 Cr has already been disbursed to startups, institutions, MSMEs and research bodies.
Launched in 2022, TTDF aims to back indigenous R&D projects in the telecom space to spur creation of intellectual properties and bridge the digital divide in rural and remote areas. It focusses on emerging segments in the telecom sector such as 6G, AI, internet of things (IoT), non-terrestrial network solutions, quantum-enabled communication systems, among others.
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