Starlink Ceases Pre-Booking in India, Seeks Experimental License After DoT Crackdown

Last Updated on December 3, 2021 by Nachiket Mhatre

Elon Musk’s trademark irreverence and cavalier attitude might work on Twitter, but that has also got his Starlink internet service in a spot of trouble in India. The SpaceX-owned satellite internet service has stopped pre-booking orders in India as of Tuesday.

The move comes after the Indian government ordered Starlink to cease “booking/rendering the satellite internet services in India with immediate effect”. The company had been accepting pre-orders for a refundable deposit of $99 (approximately ₹7,400) without acquiring requisite licensing from the Indian telecom regulatory body.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had weighed in on the issue earlier last week and called out Starlink Internet Services for accepting orders without being licensed to offer satellite internet services in the country. The move was a serious breach of DoT regulations, and the regulatory body responded by informing Indian citizens to refrain from pre-booking Starlink’s internet services.

“It’s hereby informed to the public at large that the said company (Starlink Internet) has not obtained any licence/authorisation for rendering satellite-based internet services that are being booked on their website,” DoT warned through an official statement.

Not surprisingly, the jolt from the Indian telecom regulatory body has prompted Starlink India to finally seek license to operate in the country. This comes a month after the satellite internet provider had registered as an Indian business entity and nearly two months after it began illegally accepting paid pre-orders for a service that it isn’t even authorised to render.

Interestingly, Starlink has now applied for an “experimental license” for pilot operations after the DoT missive. Once approved, the license will give the satellite internet provider the leeway to test its services out to a limited set of subscribers. Speaking to Times of India, an unnamed Starlink official confirmed that the license won’t provide it with the “authority to launch commercial services or on-board paid customers”.

Even if Starlink manages to meet DoT’s licensing requirements, the process for acquiring the experimental license will take several months before the company can even begin its pilot tests with limited subscribers. This raises genuine concerns for the 11,000-odd Indians that have paid the $99 deposit for the satellite internet service that Starlink wasn’t even authorised to collect.

It is unclear whether the service plans on refunding these pre-orders. Then again, this won’t be the first time Elon Musk has scorned Indian consumers with blatant vapourware.