After telecom operators Airtel and Jio announced pact with Elon Musk-owned SpaceX to bring Starlink to India, Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said the partnerships between satellite companies and telecom operators will be beneficial for users to get connectivity in remote areas.
“Soon customers will be able to carry their mobiles to the remotest part of the world, with them in the skies and blue oceans,” Mittal said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to Mittal, for the telecom industry, the addition of satellite technology should be no different from bringing new technologies to its customers.
“Just like 4G, 5G, and 6G in the future, we will now have one more technology in our mix, i.e. SAT-G,” he added.
Comments from Mittal followed Airtel’s partnership with SpaceX to bring Starlink’s satellite internet services to its users in the country. The agreement by Starlink with telcos, to retail its services in India, is subject to it getting a licence to operate, which is currently under evaluation by the government.
As part of the agreement, Starlink will explore offering its services via Airtel to business customers, schools, health centers, and unconnected areas in the country. Airtel will also offer Starlink equipment in its retail stores. A similar partnership was announced by Jio on Wednesday.
Jio will not only offer Starlink equipment in its retail outlets but will establish a mechanism to support customer service installation and activation.
During the recently concluded Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, Mittal had said that telecom and satellite players should work together, combine their strengths, and complete the mission of connecting the unconnected. Mittal also made call to both satellite and telecom operators to together cover the oceans, the skies and difficult-to-reach areas.
“I am glad that this is being followed through with active announcements of partnerships between satellite companies and telecom operators,” Mittal said, adding that the industry also responded favourably to slashing international roaming rates. “Today, roaming tariffs across the globe are affordable,” he said.
Interestingly, telecom operators — Jio and Airtel — have opposed the administrative allocation of spectrum for satellite firms and called for a level-playing field on the reason that global firms such as Starlink and Kuiper could eat into their market share and tap users in urban areas.
