Starlink agrees to security norms

Having secured the Letter of Intent from the telecom department and agreed to security norms for offering satcom services, Starlink will now have to formally sign acceptance of the terms and conditions of the agreement and pay the stipulated entry fee to procure the licence, according to sources.

Sources said Starlink has agreed to the stringent security norms for satellite communication services after conditions were tightened earlier this week.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is on the verge of finalising its recommendations on pricing of administrative allocation of satcom spectrum, and an announcement can be expected any day now, sources said.

Starlink has been issued the LoI for Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS), ISP and VSAT, they further said, adding that this has been the practice even for other players. Eventually, the system will work under a GMPCS licence.

Now that LoI has been issued, the next steps involved are acceptance of the letter of intent and the agreement. The licence will be issued after the entry fee is paid, they added.

While the DoT licence will authorise Starlink to build its network, it would require approvals from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and obtain spectrum from the government to become operational.

Starlink provides high-speed and low-latency broadband internet worldwide, using satellite technology and is aptly described by some as broadband beamed from the skies.

Unlike conventional satellite services that rely on distant geostationary satellites, Starlink utilises the world’s largest low-orbit or LEO constellation (550 km above Earth).

This constellation of LEO satellites stands at 7,000 but is eventually set to grow to over 40,000.