India is all set to witness a brutal price war as Reliance Jio on Wednesday announced its agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to conquer the country’s satellite broadband market.
Jio Signs A Deal With Starlink
Jio joined SpaceX, a day after rival Airtel announced a similar agreement with SpaceX.
“This is the second agreement signed in India, and the agreements of Jio and Airtel are subject to receiving necessary security clearances and approvals from the government to sell Starink’s superfast broadband services in India. The application of SpaceX has already been under the Home Ministry’s active review,” official circles from New Delhi, said.
Competitors Turn Partners
“Let’s be more wireless in a wild world. Satellite internet is sustainable as it’s a next-generation connectivity, and SpaceX must leverage its deep experience with both spacecraft and on-orbit operations to deploy the world’s most advanced broadband internet system, and offer its best of best to the world. We are over the moon today as the Jio-SpaceX alliance and Airtel's endeavour will ramp up the battle into a more customer-friendly price war, and “we won’t be surprised if billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio announces a free one year satellite internet subscription to Jio customers”.
Jio is already offering the cheapest mobile data network in the world,” said Dr Harikrishnan, a Jio customer.
“The race between Mukesh Ambani and Elon Musk intensified in the third quarter of last year when the government announced that satellite spectrum for broadband would be allocated administratively rather than through auction.
Starlink’s India entry will only promote healthy competition, ultimately, customers are the winners, and there is no permanent rivalry in actual business, real politics, and among genuine professionals,” sources close to Elon Musk’s Washington circles told The Free Press Journal.
“The entry of SpaceX, if materialized, will accelerate India’s concerted efforts to attract foreign investments from leading global players to all key sectors of the economy, creating millions of jobs every year,” said a senior Hyderabad-based economist.
The New Era
Starlink is the world’s first and largest satellite constellation using a low earth orbit. Starlink delivers broadband internet capable of supporting streaming, online gaming, video calls and much more.
Today, Starlink delivers high-speed, low-latency internet to users all over the world. Jio has brought transformational changes in the Indian digital services space to enable the vision of Digital India for 1.4 billion Indians and propel India into global leadership in the digital economy.
The agreement with SpaceX is part of Jio’s commitment to ensuring that reliable internet is fully accessible to all enterprises, small and medium businesses, and communities across India. “Ensuring that every Indian, no matter where they live, has access to affordable and high-speed broadband remains Jio’s top priority,” said Mathew Oommen, Group CEO, Reliance Jio.