Musk's Starlink to vie with Indian telcos in fixed wireless access space

Elon Musk’s decision to tie up with Airtel to distribute and market satellite broadband Starlink could bring Musk in a headlong battle with Reliance Jio. 

The Mukesh Ambani-led company is rolling out a mega plan to reach over 100 million homes with fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband. 

However, Musk’s Starlink will still need permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs and also have to buy spectrum administratively before it can offer services to Indian customers. 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai’s) recommendations on how it will be done are awaited. 

Also, while in many ways Musk’s firm will be collaborating with Airtel to sell kits and market and distribute services, it will also compete with the Indian telco in the same space. This is through One Web, which is also planning to offer satellite broadband in the country. 

Musk’s firm will also be looking to grow its FWA business after a slow start. Clearly, the opportunity is big and that is why it makes sense for Musk to go on with his India ambition. The country is a large market with projections that around 85-100 million homes will have FWA by 2030. 

Ericsson estimates that India will soon surpass the US, which is the company’s largest market with 6 million FWA customers.

Jio and Airtel already have over 3 million subscribers in FWA in over 1,700 cities and towns of the country. The challenge of course for Starlink will be to price its product competitively against both Jio as well as Airtel in FWA and with Airtel in satellite broadband.

Indian telcos are offering FWA at an entry price of ₹599 for a month with even free installation. 

The last time Starlink offered satellite broadband was in 2021. Then, the price of the service was ₹7,400 a month and the kit cost ₹37,400. This was out of reach of most customers. But Starlink is already playing the pricing game in many markets as part of its expansion plan.

 

In Kenya, it offers the service. In India, it need not make big investments by leaving the distribution and marketing to Airtel.

And with such a huge constellation of satellites, experts say that Musk’s Starlink has enough bandwidth capacity over India. It is equivalent to the bandwidth India’s top telcos have over terrestrial space. 

However, many experts say that satellite broadband will only complement terrestrial services by serving unserved areas, difficult terrains and forests, but not replace it. 

But GSMA research shows that due to the proliferation of 4G and 5G, only 1 per cent of India’s population is unconnected.

Around 96 per cent of the 650,000 villages in the country are covered by 4G and 5G services. The remaining is getting connected through USO funded programmes or by BSNL. 

Clearly, for Starlink, the market may be elsewhere.