BENGALURU, Oct 9 : India’s telecom minister mentioned on Friday the nation doesn’t permit monopolies in any sector, pushing again after Elon Musk urged billionaire Mukesh Ambani was utilizing political affect to dam Starlink’s launch within the nation.
“India doesn’t permit a monopoly in any sector,” telecom minister Jyotiraditya Scindia mentioned at a media briefing on Friday, addressing Musk’s remarks.
Musk’s SpaceX unit is searching for entry right into a telecom market with greater than a billion web customers, at the moment dominated by the cell networks of Ambani’s Reliance Jio and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel.
“Is Ambani the actual boss of India?”, Musk wrote on X on Thursday, questioning why Starlink nonetheless lacked a license regardless of what he mentioned have been years of compliance with Indian necessities. He supplied no proof towards Ambani.
Ambani’s Reliance Jio didn’t reply to a request for feedback on Musk’s remarks.
A four-year wait to launch Starlink’s satellite tv for pc web companies in India has sparked heated exchanges on-line over enterprise affect and regulatory delays, with Musk focusing on Ambani and the political opposition becoming a member of the row.
Whereas Starlink has already secured a licence to function in India, a business launch nonetheless requires it to satisfy safety compliance circumstances and obtain a spectrum project.
The federal government mentioned on Thursday that every one three licensed satellite tv for pc operators together with Starlink have been at broadly the identical regulatory stage, calling solutions of an unfair or discriminatory course of “baseless and misconceived”.