Elon Musken Starlink hits a wall in India | Business and Economic News

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India has told Starlink that it has yet to obtain a license to return customers and make no new orders.
Elon Musk’s billionaire satellite internet company Starlink has told its members that the Indian government has asked the company to return all pre-orders until they receive licenses to operate in the country.
“As always, you can receive a refund at any time,” the company said in an email to one of its customers. Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a copy of the email he saw.
Starlink, a division of Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, has already received more than 5,000 pre-orders for its devices in India, but is struggling to obtain commercial licenses that could not provide services in the country.
“Unfortunately, the timeframe for receiving operating licenses is unknown at present, and there are a number of issues that need to be resolved with the licensing framework for Starlink Indian to operate,” the company said in an email.
“The Starlink team hopes to make Starlink available in India as soon as possible,” he said.
Starlink is one of a growing number of companies launching small satellites as part of a low-Earth orbit network to provide low-latency broadband internet services, with a focus on remote areas that have difficulty accessing terrestrial internet infrastructure. SpaceX has told investors that Starlink is looking for a $ 1 trillion market share made up of in-flight internet, maritime services, Chinese and Indian orders, and rural customers.
The business has stalled
But the Indian government has advised people to subscribe without a Starlink license and has ordered the company to take reservations and not provide services.
Starlink plans to apply for a commercial license by the end of January in India, Sanjay Bhargava, the head of his country, said in a social media post last month, and a presentation showed that the April expansion was aimed at 200,000 devices in India by December 2022. .
However, in the year A LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Bhargava said he had resigned as the country’s director and chairman of the country “for personal reasons”. According to his profile on the platform, he took office in October.
In India, Starlink planned “Running a business in telecommunications services”, satellite broadband internet services, content storage and streaming, multimedia communication, among others. He also wanted to deal with satellite phones, network equipment, wireless and wireless communication devices, and data transmission and reception equipment.
The company will also focus on “catalyzing rural development” through its broadband services in India, Bhargava said in a statement he shared on LinkedIn over the weekend.
Following the authorization to provide the services, the company initially planned to provide 100 free devices to schools in and around Delhi and then to 12 rural areas across India.
Starlink’s rivals include Amazon.com’s Kuiper and OneWeb, a crashed satellite operator rescued by the British government and the Bharti Group of India.
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