Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture, Starlink, is all set to kickstart its services in India, awaiting the regulatory approvals by the Indian authorities. However, Starlink is globally expanding at a rapid pace, officially surpassing 9 million active customers worldwide as of December 2025. The milestone is notable due to the pace at which the company achieved such great expansion — its latest one million users were onboarded in less than seven weeks, which is approximately equivalent to adding 20,000 new subscribers every single day.
SpaceX announced the achievement on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets.”
Starlink gains rapid popularity
Starlink’s rapid growth is fueled by an ever-expanding constellation of over 9,000 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. This mesh of connectivity has become a lifeline in regions where traditional fiber or mobile networks are nonexistent:
Remote Education: Connecting mountain schools in Nepal and tribal regions in South America.
Extreme Research: Enabling high-speed video calls for scientists in Antarctica.
Aviation and Maritime: Expanding to dozens of commercial airlines and cruise fleets to provide gigabit-speed Wi-Fi mid-journey.
Starlink India launch: When will the services go live
While Starlink’s global footprint expands, the question for Indian consumers is shifting from “if” to “exactly when.” After years of regulatory hurdles, the path to an Indian launch has cleared significantly in late 2025.
Security and Licenses:
Starlink received its Unified License from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) earlier this year, but only after agreeing to India’s strict “data localisation” rules. This ensures that no Indian user traffic is routed or decrypted outside of local gateways.
Physical infrastructure:
The company has already leased its first operational office at the World Trade Centre in Delhi and is setting up ground stations in cities like Mumbai, Noida, and Hyderabad.
Launch window: While the government initially hinted at a December 2025 start, industry insiders now point to early 2026 for a commercial rollout, pending the finalisation of spectrum pricing by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Estimated pricing of Starlink India
While a “price glitch” on the website once suggested a steep Rs 8,600 monthly fee, recent reports suggest actual consumer plans could be competitively priced between Rs 2,500 and Rs 3,500 to challenge local rivals like Reliance JioSpaceFiber and Bharti OneWeb.
Elon Musk recently expressed his enthusiasm for the Indian market, replying to Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on X, “Looking forward to serving India with Starlink!”
