When Elon Musk wrote on X that “certain oligarchs” were blocking Starlink in India to keep a “monopolistic chokehold” on the Indian people, he handed the country a Bollywood kind of debate: a billionaire against a ministry.
India’s Ministry of Communications called the claim “baseless and misconceived“, pointing to a licensing framework it describes as fair and non-discriminatory.
Starlink, Reliance Jio and Airtel-backed OneWeb all hold licences. Security assessments are under way for all three, and the ministry says they sit at broadly the same regulatory stage.
Dismissing Musk’s allegations that his satcom company Starlink is being blocked in India, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told PTI that even his satcom venture, Eutelsat OneWeb, is awaiting approvals to start operations.
I do not think this Musk’s accusation deserves much of our attention. The question that does is whether a village in the Northeast or an island in the Andamans can get a fast, dependable and affordable connection, and who will build it.
Starlink has been a game changer in some places, and I say so without reservation.
Daniel Featherstone and Kieran Hegarty have written about to how in the Cape York community of Wujal Wujal in Queensland, a low-Earth-orbit connection stayed up through heavy rain, when the older satellite service failed under cloud cover. After the December 2023 floods destroyed nearly half the town’s buildings and broke the fibre-optic cable, Starlink was the only reliable communication link.
Amanda H.A. Watson and Atishnal Elvin Chand observe that Pacific governments have responded to the service in very different ways, and that responses have shifted fast. Niue once threatened fines or imprisonment for unauthorised use, then gave Starlink the go-ahead in March 2026. Similarly, in April 2026 Papua New Guinea‘s National Court found that the Ombudsman Commission had acted unlawfully in halting Starlink’s licensing, calling the directive a “disproportionate, pre-emptive strike”. Watson, who has followed the case, said the court was “rather unimpressed” with the Commission. Many PNG citizens welcomed the ruling, as did their prime minister.
People who live far from the grid want what the rest of us take for granted, and they are right to want it. What is at stake in places like these is considerable. Starlink has linked remote schools in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, and after the December 2024 earthquake knocked out Vanuatu’s only submarine cable, more than 300 units were quickly deployed to keep residents, businesses and emergency services in contact.
Musk says Starlink would bring “high-speed, affordable” internet to Indians who cannot afford current prices or have no connection at all. India has every reason to want that capability, given its mountains, islands, forests and far-flung villages. But the Australian experience is a warning, and it should shape how we judge the promise.
Researchers Featherstone and Hegarty working on the Mapping the Digital Gap project found that Starlink, for all its virtues, is opening a new divide inside remote First Nations communities. Schools, councils, health services and police adopted it quickly. Households largely did not: only 1–2% in sites like Wilcannia and Wujal Wujal had signed up by 2024, because equipment costing A$500 to A$600 and monthly fees of A$139 are out of reach for most. Nearly everyone else relies on prepaid mobile plans, often spending A$280 a month or more on data for slow speeds and patchy coverage.
The researchers’ fear is that Starlink becomes “elite” infrastructure, a premium service for those who can pay. Nationally, First Nations Australians are twice as likely as other Australians to be digitally excluded, and in the very remote communities the researchers visited, three in four people were.
Which brings us to the question Musk’s pitch skips: affordable by whose standard? A service can be cheaper than the satellite alternatives and still be out of reach for the families it claims to serve. Until there is a pricing model built for low-income Indian households, “affordable” remains a promise rather than a fact.
Now translate that to India. A country of 1.4 billion people, with hundreds of millions on modest incomes, does not close its digital divide by importing a service priced for institutions and the comfortable. A Starlink kit that suits a mining company, a resort or a well-off farmer’s household does little for a subsistence family in a tribal belt.
Australia’s lesson is that connectivity does not reach the people who most need it just because the technology is excellent. Price, community design and digital skills decide that.
India also has something Australia’s remote communities lack: a track record of building connectivity at population scale. UPI and the low-cost mobile data revolution showed that Indian infrastructure can be designed for affordability from the start. We should apply the same thinking to the last mile.
I think India’s satellite capacity should be one layer of that effort, with the BharatNet fibre programme, community Wi-Fi and shared access points, subsidised or concessional plans for low-income households, and local digital-skills support run through panchayats and community organisations.
In fact, the Australian researchers recommend much the same measures: treating connectivity as an essential service, offering prepaid-style broadband products and backing community access models.
Speaking at the India Mobile Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that the security of phones and networks is a priority for all of us, a sensible stance as India’s telecom sector moves steadily towards self-reliance.
He added, “Today, when telecom and digital technology are so important… it is essential that the security framework linked to them is also made watertight. The security of phones and the security of networks… this is a priority for all of us.”
Domestic and plural satellite options matter too. The government’s security conditions, including the requirement that licensees demonstrate compliance before spectrum is assigned, are legitimate. Starlink’s own executives say they have built India-specific controls and will keep Indian user data within India. If that holds up in the assessment, good. But a country that routes its remote communications through any single foreign provider, however capable, takes on a dependency it should weigh carefully.
If Starlink clears the security review and the spectrum process, it should compete, and it will probably serve border regions, disaster response and offshore areas very well.
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