Elon Musk Starlink gets her path to India

Starlink, Elon Musks Satellite Communications Company, fought behind the scenes for months to enter Internet Internet business. The market is dominated by two local giants, reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, who seemed united to try to keep Starlink to go out.

Then, suddenly, this week, each of them announced a partnership to bring Starlink to India, pending the approval of governments.

Jio, a branch of the largest India company, said On Tuesday, he would team up with Starlink to provide reliable broadband services across the country, including in the most remote and rural areas. A few hours earlier, Airtel had celebrated an agreement Similar terms.

The support of two of the most influential Magnats of the India, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance and Sunil Bharti Mittal by Bharti Airtel, was a breakthrough for Mr. Musk, whose companies have tried for years to access India.

Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX, Starlinks Parent Company, said in a press release that supports her from Jios announces that she was impatiently awaiting authorization from the government of India to provide more people, organizations and businesses with high -speed Starlinks Internet services. Airtel noted that his partnership would be subject to SpaceX receiving his own authorizations. With local partners who hold governments, the chances of Starlinks seem stronger.

While Mr. Musk stands side by side with President Trump, trying to aggressively reduce the United States government, his trade relations in the world have become even more important. In India, where Prime Minister Narendra modified tried to appease Trump to avoid prices, Musks has long struggled to break the market of his automotive company, Tesla, attracted a lot of attention. But Starlink could be a larger price.

Starlinks at Low Earth Satellites grouped the globe, which makes it possible to pass the Internet services to the surface to the quality of high speed. Where Internet on the ground is uneven, as in the rural regions of India, Starlink sees an opportunity.

Mr. Ambanis Jio, the largest mobile data supplier in the world, has half a billion subscribers. But for generations, foreign companies have found impossible to challenge the Ambani family on their domestic lawn.

With the election of Mr. Trumps and Mr. Musks proximity to power in Washington, new arrangements seem possible.

India commercial and political companies have held a burst of closed -door meetings with Mr. Trumps Inner Circle. Mr. Ambani attended one of Mr. Trumps' inauguration parties in January, and Mr. Modi was photographed by having a chummy meeting with Musk in Washington last month. The Minister of Commerce of India, Piyush Goyal, spent last week in Washington, and Tulsi Gabbard, the American director of national intelligence, is expected to be in New Delhi next week.

In India, Starlink fought two battles simultaneously. The first is contrary to India, a feeling of national security. To qualify for a communication license, foreign companies must pass a gantlet of regulatory tests. Starlink briefly took pre -orders in India in 2021, taking an angry response from the India's Ministry of Communications, who told him to stop selling until he was approved by the government, now under study.

The other battle opposed the richest person in the world, Mr. Musk, against the richest person in Asia, Mr. Ambani. The owner of Jio had partnered with Airtels, normally a fierce competitor, to affirm that the rights to transmit the Internet to India should be sold by the government at auction. Starlink wanted to avoid an auction war, which would force him to go beyond companies that had already marked big bets on the Indian market.

Nikhil Pahwa, the founder of Medianama, who provides an analysis of India technological policy, said that he was not clear if Starlink would compete directly with the two Indian telecommunications giants or only serve them. This counts, because there is a lack of competition on the Indian market for internet access, he said. Mobile data is cheaper in India than all over the world, only 14 cents by GigaCtet, but if Starlink does not offer its own services, it only interrupted the Duopoly of Airtel and Jio, he said.

In both cases, Starlink is expected to wedge the internet market by satellite to India. Airtel and Jio had started to invest in alternative systems, developed at great cost with European partners, but could decide to count exclusively on Starlink instead.

Others are concerned about different types of vulnerability, such as Mr. Musks, ability to use Starlink as a geopolitical instrument. The Starlinks services were limited several times in Ukraine during the war there.

Last week, Mr. Musk had a bad mood On social networks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who declared that if Starlink was performing an unreliable supplier in Ukraine, the country's allies are looking for other suppliers. Mr. Musk suddenly replied silent, little man and added that he would never die his services in Ukraine, because without Starlink, the Ukrainian lines would collapse.

After the announcement of the agreements with Jio and Airtel, Jairam Ramesh, spokesperson for the India opposition congress party, asked in a job: Who will have the power to activate or deactivate connectivity when national security requires it? Will it be Starlink or its Indian partners?