Elon Musk now has his fingers in both pies of India’s telecom space.
A day after Airtel had announced that it had tied up with Starlink to bring its satellite internet services to India, Jio has gone ahead and made a similar announcement. “Jio Platforms Limited (JPL) announced an agreement with SpaceX to offer Starlink’s broadband internet services to its customers in India. This agreement, which is subject to SpaceX receiving its own authorizations to sell Starlink in India, enables Jio and SpaceX to explore how Starlink can extend Jio’s offerings and how Jio can complement SpaceX’s direct offerings to consumers and businesses,” Jio said in a press release.
“Through this agreement, the parties will leverage Jio’s position as the world’s largest mobile operator in terms of data traffic and Starlink’s position as the world’s leading low Earth orbit satellite constellation operator to deliver reliable broadband services across the country, including the most rural and remote regions of India. Jio will not only offer Starlink equipment in its retail outlets but will establish a mechanism to support customer service installation and activation…Starlink complements JioAirFiber and JioFiber by extending high speed internet to the most challenging of locations in a quick and affordable manner,” it added.
This is a pretty interesting turnaround from Jio, which had thus far been battling against Starlink’s entry into India. Jio had been arguing that satellite spectrum be auctioned, much like 4G and 5G spectrum was auctioned, while Starlink and Airtel had been claiming that satellite spectrum should be simply allocated by the government to companies in line with global best practices. Jio’s lobbying hadn’t seemed to work, and both Indian courts and its latest telecom bill had indicated that the country would simply allocate satellite spectrum.
Just yesterday, Airtel and Starlink had announced a partnership which would bring Starlink into India. This would’ve pitted Jio against the combined strength of Starlink and Airtel. But less than 24 hours later, Jio has announced a very similar partnership with Starlink, and in very similar language. It now appears that Jio and Airtel, the two biggest telecom operators in the country, will both help Starlink establish its presence in India.
It’s an unusual situation. In an ideal world, both Airtel and Jio would’ve liked to keep the Indian internet market to themselves, and would’ve wanted foreign companies like Starlink to stay out of the picture entirely. But Elon Musk has gained considerable geopolitical clout after he had backed Donald Trump into the White House, and it appears that Starlink’s India entry was inevitable. In this situation, both companies have chosen to side with Starlink, as opposed to look to take it on. And with neither Jio nor Airtel currently having the capability to compete with Starlink’s satellite internet services on their own, it might be the wisest course of action for both companies.