Elon Musk’s Spacex registers subsidiary in India

Elon Musk-backed satellite division Spacex has registered a fully owned subsidiary in India, which will allow it to start applying for licenses. It is called Starlink Satellite Communications Private Limited that will enable the satellite Internet provider to go ahead with the regulatory procedures so as to operate in the country. The company further lists Sanjay Bhargava, Starlink India’s country director and Anand Prasad as signatories. The development was announced by Sanjay Bhargava in a Linkedin post.

According to the company filing, it has been said that Starlink would “carry on the business of telecommunication services including satellite broadband Internet services, content storage and streaming, multi-media communication, among others.”

Spacex, in 2019, launched its first ‘constellation’ of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites which were designed to deliver high-speed low-latency Internet to remote regions which can access it using Starlink terminals. Unlike regular satellites that orbit around 36,000 km above the earth, LEO satellites orbit between 500 and 2000 km that means a LEO Internet connection is much faster than regular satellite Internet. This technology makes it possible for people living in remote regions to access almost broadband speed internet without laying down the expensive network cable infrastructure.

Earlier this year, while rolling out the beta-testing of the Starlink services in India, Spacex had hit regulatory hurdles, when the Broadband India Forum (BIF), a policy forum consisting of ISPS and industry giants including Google, Facebook, and ACT objected to it. The BIF argued that Spacex didn’t have the authorisation or license of any kind to offer Internet services in the country.