has once again ignited the debate over Starlink’s pending licence to operate in India, naming ‘Ambani’ in a an X post on Friday.
Musk started his message with “Dear Prime Minister Ambani,” and then said, “Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India.”
“Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete?” Musk added.
“There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better,” he also said.
In a follow-up post, the richest man in the world said, “Also, Starlink has proven to be essential for saving lives during natural disasters throughout the world, when all other communications systems have failed, so you would also be helping save men, women and children throughout India.”
This is not the first time Elon Musk has claimed there is a monopoly in India’s broadband sector.
Telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia rejected these claims on Friday, saying that India does not allow monopolies in any sector.
“Let me set the record straight. For us, the Department of Telecommunications, we are technology agnostic… Our job is to be able to provide the bouquet of services to every single customer. It is for the customer to choose in a free market which service he or she prefers, and within that service bouquet, which company’s service he or she prefers,” the minister said at a briefing at India Mobile Congress in New Delhi.
The government said on Thursday that all three licensed satellite operators including Starlink were at broadly the same regulatory stage, calling suggestions of an unfair or discriminatory process “baseless and misconceived”.
Scindia said that while there is a lot of conversation about one particular company, three have got satcom licences.
“We are very clear on our stand. There are three parties that have got a licence, as and when the government decides the charge system on the revenue basis, that spectrum will be assigned to them, and as and when they individually fulfil security conditions, then they can start operations,” the Minister said.
TRAI and the telecom department are close to a final decision on pricing regime for satcom spectrum, Scindia said.
Hitting out at Congress, in the backdrop of Rahul Gandhi and Elon Musk’s exchange on X, the minister said, “As far as the Congress party is concerned… I don’t think they themselves know whether they’re going left or right,” he said.
With agency inputs
