Elon Musk urges India to fast-track Starlink satellite internet for rural areas

In a post on X, Elon Musk asserted that Starlink's satellite broadband could serve India's least connected communities, especially in rural districts. He cited a recent post indicating that over 11,000 villages still have no 4G service and that rural internet penetration stands at 48.31 subscriptions per 100 people, compared with 126.80 in urban areas. While BharatNet has laid more than 850,000 route-kilometers of fibre and prepared around 221,000 Gram Panchayats, only 80,472 have operational Points of Presence.

Musk argued that Starlink could overcome challenges of difficult terrain, low commercial viability, and infrastructure gaps by delivering direct-to-device connectivity to remote villages, islands and disaster zones. He called on the Indian government to complete spectrum allocation and clear the service for commercial launch without further delay. Starlink business operations vice president Lauren Dreyer confirmed ongoing talks with the Centre and dismissed claims that approvals were frozen over security concerns, describing such reports as unfounded.