Billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday said his communications company SpaceX is figuring out the regulatory approval process in India for wireless internet services.
"Just figuring out the regulatory approval process," tweeted Musk, while responding to a Twitter user who asked him about when the company plans to launch Starlink services in India.
According to SpaceX, the Starlink internet service will make web access more affordable for people in remote areas worldwide, including in India. In fact, SpaceX has already started taking pre-orders of its internet program ‘Starlink’ in India.
Currently, SpaceX promises an internet speed between 50 and 150 mbps for the Starlink project. It expects to double the internet speed to 300 mbps through a network of about 12,000 satellites. Starlink has already placed over 1200 satellites in orbit.
Starlink is a collection of internet satellites that orbit in closer proximity to the earth’s surface compared to other large navigation and communication satellites, thus ensuring faster internet service. While Starlink satellites orbit the earth at an altitude of 550 kms, the others usually operate at an altitude between 2,000 kms and 35,000 kms.
According to a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF), 50 percent of people in India didn’t have internet access as of August 2020. However, the report added that India is one of the fastest-growing markets in terms of new internet users, who grew by 23 percent between 2019 and 2020.
