Starlink Cautiously Finds Its Footing in India

Elon Musk’s satellite internet company sets up a Mumbai office and plans nine ground stations as it navigates India’s complex regulatory terrain.

MIT SMR Editors October 28, 2025

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Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite broadband venture, has leased a 1,294 sq. ft ground floor office in the Boomerang commercial complex in Chandivali, a suburb of Mumbai, Mint reported on Tuesday, citing lease documents.

The five-year agreement, which began on 14 October, will initially house the company’s legal team, which is expected to move in by November. Until now, Starlink staff had been working out of a co-working space in nearby Powai.

The Mumbai office is Starlink’s first dedicated base in India and comes as the company builds out the ground network it will need to launch commercial satellite internet services in the country.

Starlink plans to set up nine gateway earth stations in major cities including Mumbai, Noida, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Lucknow, The Economic Times reported last week, citing people familiar with the build out.

Starlink has applied for roughly 600 gigabits per second of satellite capacity over India, using its first generation constellation.

The Department of Telecommunications has assigned spectrum on a provisional basis so the company can run security compliance demonstrations.

A senior official said the spectrum has been cleared only for testing and only for fixed satellite services. Starlink has been allowed to import just 100 user terminals for these trials.

Those limits reflect how sensitive satellite communications are for New Delhi. India’s home ministry and security agencies have been wary of Starlink hardware operating in the country without oversight.

In December 2024, security forces in Manipur seized Starlink equipment along with rifles, pistols, grenades and other weapons during a raid on an insurgent group, triggering a formal probe into possible unauthorized use of the network in conflict areas.

Around the same time, investigators in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands recovered a Starlink Mini terminal from a Myanmar boat carrying what police said was about ₹360 billion worth of methamphetamine, and later sought purchase and usage records from Starlink.

Because of those incidents, Indian authorities have put Starlink under strict operating conditions. The telecom department has told the company that until further notice only Indian nationals can run its planned gateway earth stations, and that all test data must stay in India. Requests to station foreign technical staff at those gateways have been denied for now. The government has also said Starlink must file regular security compliance reports while it prepares for commercial rollout.

Even with those checks, India is now closer to letting Starlink switch on service than it has ever been. The company has secured the key telecom licence from the Department of Telecommunications and, in July, received separate authorisation from India’s national space regulator IN-SPACe for its satellite constellation, clearing major regulatory hurdles after years of delay. Starlink is positioning itself as a last mile broadband option for rural and underserved areas where fibre and mobile networks are patchy, an area where New Delhi has publicly said it wants more private investment.

But Starlink will not be alone. The company will face Bharti backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Reliance Jio’s satellite unit, both of which have already obtained approvals to offer satellite broadband in India. The race is now to convert spectrum trials and ground infrastructure into commercial service without falling foul of national security rules.

For now, the Mumbai lease is modest in size but significant in signal. Starlink is putting people on the ground, building Indian owned gateway operations and agreeing to localisation demands that include Indian only staffing and India only data. The message is clear. To operate here, it has to operate on India’s terms.

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