Starlink India launch to cover 2 million subscribers at a price that won't threaten local providers

When Starlink launches in India, its monthly subscription price won't be the rumored $10 equivalent that analysts predicted could decimate local telcos and bring a rapid expansion of the satellite Internet service's subscription base.

The rollout of the Starlink India service with all the accompanying ground gateways and antenna sets is going to be quite expensive, according to the Indian communications ministry. The upfront and equipment costs are, in fact, so high that Starlink will only be able to offer its services in India for the equivalent of $35 a month after launch.

That is a far cry from the ten bucks a month hopes that would've seen it rival the government's rural providers like BSNL. That is why the ministry mandates that "Starlink can have only 20 lakh customers in India and offer up to 200 Mbps speed," so that the price and speed of the Starlink services in India would be commensurate with the capacity and won't be a threat to the current telecom services there.

These are the numbers that the rest of the global Starlink subscribers like to hear, too, as adding many more millions of customers would put a strain on the service, despite that SpaceX is now adding 5 Tbps of carrying capacity each week.

The Starlink satellite Internet network will be able to take on more subscribers and provide faster speeds without affecting the experience of existing users starting next year. SpaceX will begin to add its V3 satellites by next summer with the Starship 3 rocket that is currently undergoing launch testing.

They are larger and add ten times the capacity of the current V2 edition, while the supported download speeds are increased by a factor of 24. The current Standard Kit, however, doesn't support the gigabit speeds that the V3 satellite network will bring, so Starlink recently issued a pricey Performance dish that does, though its $1,999 tag is mainly targeting enterprise customers.