Ready To Return Registration Money, Starlink Has Not Yet Received A License To Operate In India

Starlink is ready to refund customers in India. (photo: starlink.com)

JAKARTA – Starlink, a division of Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX, has received more than 5.000 pre-orders for its devices in India. However, they are currently struggling to get a commercial license (permit). Without that permission, they cannot offer internet service in the country to the resident.

"Unfortunately, the deadline for obtaining a license to operate is currently unknown, and there are several issues to be resolved with the licensing framework that will allow us to operate Starlink in India," the company said in an email.

This has led the Indian government to order Elon Musk's company, Starlink, to return all pre-orders until it receives a license to operate in the country. This did not make Elon Musk nervous, on the contrary Starlink seemed relaxed in responding to it.

"As always, you can receive a refund at any time," the company said in an email to one of its customers, also seen by Reuters. "The Starlink team hopes to make Starlink available in India as soon as possible."

Starlink is one of many companies launching small satellites as part of a low-Earth orbit network to provide low-latency broadband internet service worldwide. They usually focus specifically on remote areas that are difficult to reach by terrestrial internet infrastructure.

But the Indian government has advised Indians not to subscribe to Starlink without a license and ordered companies to refrain from accepting orders and providing services.

Starlink itself plans to apply for a commercial license in India by the end of January, its head of state Sanjay Bhargava said in a social media post last month. From their presentation also indicated that the launch will be in April targeting 200.000 devices in India by December 2022.

However, in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Bhargava said he had stepped down as country director and chairman of the board for "personal reasons". According to his profile on the platform, he had taken on the role in October.

In India, Starlink will compete with Kuiper and Amazon.com's OneWeb, satellite operators that nearly went bankrupt but were rescued by the British government and India's Bharti Group. The competition makes licensing for Starlink seem more difficult.