SpaceX has applied for the license, and the government will now decide on the license in accordance with the...
Digital Desk: As India is preparing to launch 5G services in every city, global companies are showing interest in industries related to the country's space.
SpaceX, which is controlled by Elon Musk, has applied to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for a global mobile personal communication via satellite services (GMPCS) license in order to launch broadband-from-space services in India under the Starlink brand.
SpaceX has applied for the license, and the government will now decide on the license in accordance with the department's procedures, said an official privy to the details.
The official stated that international firms are now expressing interest in Indian space, with SpaceX being one of them. SpaceX is the third business to apply for the license, following Bharti Group-backed OneWeb and Reliance Jio Infocomm's satellite arm.
SpaceX is the world's largest provider of launch services and is the first commercial firm to have delivered humans to and from the International Space Station (ISS). It is the only business to have successfully completed every civilian crew mission into orbit.
With the Starlink constellation, SpaceX provides global internet connectivity. The official stated that after receiving the license, SpaceX must seek approval from the Department of Space and then obtain spectrum to offer services.
In addition, SpaceX will need to set up an in-country earth station and deploy its global satellite bandwidth capacity in India. These approvals would be required from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), a central regulatory organization tasked with attracting private capital in the space industry.
After major companies showed interest in the Indian space, competition is heating up in India's still-emerging broadband-from-space services market, which could be worth USD 13 billion by 2025. Jio, OneWeb, Nelco of the Tata Group, Canada's Telesat, and Amazon are all looking into the possibility of launching satellite broadband services in India.
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