Niche customers to be targetted by pricey Starlink in India
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Photo: AP
New Delhi: Given that Elon Musk's Starlink's prices are far higher than those of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, it may be aiming to attract niche clients in India.
A Bernstein report claims that while Starlink's satellite technology has benefits in rural locations, its high price and possible speed variations make it less appealing to customers in urban and semi-urban areas, where Jio and Airtel offer dependable and reasonably priced broadband services.
Recently, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio established separate partnerships with Starlink to provide broadband connections in India. Both businesses have stated that services won't start until Starlink has been given the go-ahead by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), TNIE reported
According to industry insiders, the DoT is probably going to issue a licence to the Musk-led business soon. In fact, on Wednesday evening, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union minister for Electronics and Information Technology, welcomed Starlink to India in a social media post.The minister later removed the post, though.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has not yet made its recommendations about satellite broadband pricing and other modalities. According to reports, in order to gauge initial market uptake, the telecom regulator intends to suggest that satellite broadband spectrum be allocated for five years rather than twenty.