Elon Musk has pitched Starlink as a solution to India’s rural connectivity gap even as the satellite Internet company awaits regulatory clearances to begin commercial operations in the country. “Starlink would help the least served in India, especially in rural areas,” the SpaceX founder said in a post on X on Thursday. He was responding to a post by X account DogeDesigner, which highlighted the extent of India’s connectivity gap and called for faster approval of Starlink services for remote villages.
According to the post, 11,256 villages on India’s official list still lacked 4G coverage as of May 2026. While India had 1.09 billion Internet subscriptions in March, only 440.87 million were rural, translating into a rural subscription density of 48.31 per 100 people against 126.80 in urban areas. The figures underline the potential market for satellite connectivity in areas where extending terrestrial networks is difficult or commercially unviable.
Musk’s comments come as Starlink has made a fresh application to the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) for its Gen-2 satellite network, according to recent reports. The regulator had earlier rejected the company’s application after finding that some features of the proposed network and the spectrum bands it sought to use did not meet Indian requirements.
IN-SPACe has so far authorised Starlink’s smaller Gen-1 constellation, comprising about 4,400 low-Earth-orbit satellites, for conventional satellite broadband services. The fresh Gen-2 bid is significant because the system is designed to support a much larger constellation and includes direct-to-device (D2D) connectivity capabilities, potentially allowing compatible phones to connect directly to satellites without relying on a terrestrial mobile tower.
That could expand Starlink’s addressable market beyond customers requiring satellite broadband terminals, particularly in remote areas where mobile infrastructure is sparse. It would also put Starlink more directly in competition with other satellite connectivity initiatives, including Reliance Jio’s planned satellite services, Amazon’s Leo constellation and Eutelsat OneWeb.