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October 12, 2026
By Girish Linganna
Key Takeaways:
After signing a 2025 agreement to distribute and install Starlink kits, Reliance Jio gained practical insight into low-Earth-orbit operations and regulatory hurdles, then in October 2026 proposed its own roughly 1,600-satellite constellation with 23 domestic ground stations so that all data remains inside India and meets national security and localisation rules.
The plan complements Jio’s existing higher-orbit partnership with SES and would serve remote villages and border areas under full Indian control, though launching so many satellites may still require SpaceX rockets given ISRO’s current capacity limits, while spectrum policy remains contested between auction demands and administrative assignment.
The episode illustrates patient strategy in which an Indian operator studied a foreign system, waited for security clearances that delayed Starlink, and advanced a parallel domestic alternative, ensuring that control over how signals reach households stays rooted in Indian soil.
In a Himalayan foothill village, a child waits for a video lesson to load while a shopkeeper hopes an online order will go through. On a far coast, a health worker needs a doctor’s voice in an emergency. For such families, satellite internet decides whether India’s remotest corners get connected, and who holds the keys when they do.
In March 2025, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel both signed agreements with SpaceX. Jio was to stock Starlink kits in its retail outlets and help customers install them, becoming the trusted local hand to carry the service into Indian homes and businesses once government permissions arrived. Elon Musk, reassured by a major domestic partner for sales and setup, spoke more freely about technical details and expansion plans.
That friendship carried a hidden gain. Standing beside Starlink, Jio could observe how a low Earth orbit service actually runs in India: how equipment moves across the country, which regulatory steps remain, and what infrastructure must exist on the ground. It was a rare classroom, and Jio studied well. Then its thinking turned from distributing someone else’s system to proposing a fully domestic one.
In early October 2026, Jio proposed roughly 1,600 low Earth orbit satellites, supported by 23 ground stations across the country. Low Earth orbit means satellites that circle much closer to the planet than older ones. Signals travel a shorter distance, so delay shrinks and browsing feels almost as quick as a call to a neighbour. The ground stations are like railway junctions, where the sky’s traffic joins the roads and rails of India’s existing networks. Every bit of data stays inside the country’s borders, meeting the national security conditions that have kept Starlink waiting for final Home Ministry clearances. All traffic passes through local gateways, satisfying interception and data-localisation rules without a foreign operator’s complications. It would serve the same remote villages, border areas and underserved regions Starlink promised, but under complete Indian control from day one.
Jio already has an earlier satellite venture, Jio Space Technology, formed with Luxembourg’s SES and 51 per cent Jio-owned. It uses higher satellites, some hovering fixed above one spot, others circling at middle heights, such as SES’s O3b mPOWER. The new constellation seems complementary: Akash Ambani says Jio will lease partners’ capacity for a quick start while building long-term sovereign capability.
A harder question is who will lift 1,600 satellites into orbit. No launch contract is confirmed, but Jio may turn to SpaceX, whose rockets still carry most of the world’s heavy loads, an irony. ISRO’s biggest rocket, LVM3, lifts about eight tonnes to low orbit. Yet SpaceX lands and reuses its rockets, like an aircraft flying again and again, launching satellites in rapid batches. India has no such rockets in service yet, so lifting so many would be slow.
Airwaves bring another quarrel: satellites need radio frequencies, called spectrum, as roads need lanes. Jio wants the government to sell these frequencies by auction, keeping a level field with telecom operators that paid heavily for theirs. Starlink and Amazon prefer that the government simply assign them for a fee, the global norm, because satellite frequencies are shared among many operators. The government says auctions could strain business economics, and the law allows assignment.
Elon Musk took to social media with a sarcastic open letter to “Prime Minister Ambani,” accusing Reliance Industries of blocking Starlink from a $1.9 billion market through monopolistic control. The government rejects any bias, saying all three licensees await the same clearance. Yet he omits that the same company had offered to sell and install Starlink hardware across its network. That pact kept a global competitor close enough to observe while India sharpened its security requirements. When Starlink could not clear them quickly, Jio had the knowledge and momentum to advance. What emerges is not merely a delayed foreign entry, but an Indian operator preparing a parallel system whose data never leaves home soil.
This is patient strategy, valuing time and information as much as capital or technology. Musk has mastered building and launching rockets; India’s answer focused on the ground layer: stations, clearances, and control over where data travels. Where connectivity shapes education, small enterprises and emergency response, whoever owns that layer holds lasting influence. Competition still matters, for far-flung citizens deserve choices. The orbit may belong to whoever launches the satellites, yet how signals reach an Indian household stays rooted in Indian soil, one village, one connection at a time.
About Girish Linganna
Girish Linganna is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com
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