Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio or Elon Musk-owned Starlink, which will be first to launch satellite internet service in India?

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio or Elon Musk-owned Starlink, which will become the first company to launch satellite internet service in India? When will Elon Musk-owned Starlink launch its services in India? Soon, maybe in a few months?. The satellite internet provider has crossed the last hurdle as it has received approval from the country’s space regulator, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). The SpaceX-operated company has been seeking commercial licences in India since 2022. While it secured an important permit from the Department of Telecommunications last month, the US-based firm was still waiting for the green light from the Department of Space. Starlink has become the third satellite internet operator to receive regulatory nods in India. Earlier, the regulatory authority authorised Eutelsat’s OneWeb and Reliance Jio to begin their satellite internet service in the country. 

Is Starlink's infrastructure ready?

Starlink may soon hit the Indian market as it will now have to secure spectrum from the government, set up ground infrastructure, and also demonstrate through testing and trials that it meets the security rules it has signed up for. Earlier, Musk and billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio clashed over how India should grant spectrum for satellite services. India's government sided with Musk that the spectrum should be assigned and not auctioned.

What is satellite internet?

In the satellite internet service, satellites orbiting the Earth are used to provide internet service, particularly in remote or underserved areas. It is different from the traditional internet service as it does not rely on traditional wired infrastructure like fiber optic cables or DSL lines. On the contrary, it uses radio waves transmitted between a user's satellite dish, a satellite in space, and an internet service provider's ground station. New satellite internet constellations are being developed in low-earth orbit to so that low-latency internet can be accessed from space. Latency or thev "ping time" is the delay between requesting data and the receipt of a response. It may be between the actual moment of a signal's broadcast and the time it is received at its destination in case of one-way communication.