In November 1998, Iridium switched on a constellation of 66 satellites to power phones that worked anywhere on Earth.
Yes, 1998, for the dream of a global, earth-wide communication network beaming from outer space is neither a modern Silicon Valley invention, nor did it begin with Starlink. The late 90s and early 2000s saw satellite communication (or Satcom) technology companies such as Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar, and Teledesic work on a vision that was fundamentally sound, but , like it often happens in technology, premature.
Back then, the companies were using a mix of geostationary (GEO) , medium Earth orbit (MEO), and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. Inmarsat for instance used GEO satellites, which had wider coverage at the trade-off for latency (time taken between sending a request and getting a response). LEOs promised faster connectivity with a vision toward internet from the sky, but needed more satellites in the constellation.
Big idea, bad numbers
Nine months after Iridium, backed financially and technologically by Motorola, flipped the switch, it filed for bankruptcy. It was symptomatic of a larger problem. “Technological evolution often precedes commercial demand. Iridium’s first-generation network required an investment of over $5 billion, while satellite handsets were prohibitively expensive for mainstream consumers,” says Prabhu Ram, vice president – Industry Research Group, CyberMedia Research (CMR). This coincided with the expansion of more affordable terrestrial mobile networks, which eventually became a mass-market product.
While Satcom companies chased a promise, the reality was that the phone handsets were almost the size of, and weighed as much as, a brick. They cost around $3,000 and call charges were several dollars per minute.
There is no official data on the exact number of active satellite phones in India during the early 2000s, as the technology was not commercially deployed to the Indian public at scale and was heavily regulated.
At the time of bankruptcy in 1999, Iridium had an estimated 20,000 users against a reported forecast of 500,000 subscribers, in the US. Globalstar, in 2002, had around 77,000 subscribers.
Relevance, and evolution
Yet, Satcom survived, albeit in a different form, with niche use cases, proving that the first chapter of the Satcom story wasn’t a failure of the technology or of physics, but that satellite constellations and ground stations were simply too costly to keep prices affordable.
“Expensive devices and usage charges limited consumer demand, making it difficult for providers to recover their investments, especially as cellular networks were expanding and becoming more affordable. However, satellite connectivity remained essential for shipping, aviation, offshore energy and other remote industries where terrestrial networks could not reach,” says Subhadip Roy, Senior Analyst at Counterpoint Research. “Today, satellite connectivity is increasingly complementing mobile networks to fill these coverage gaps.”
In an era where SpaceX’s Starlink dominates modern communication conversations, the inspiration can be traced back to the original Satcom vision, albeit at a larger scale, a stronger satellite constellation, and the promise of high-speed internet covering every inch of Earth.And instead of Satcom’s original voice focus, Starlink’s bet is broadband.
SpaceX operates the largest, and rapidly growing LEO satellite constellation ever, with more than 11,000 Starlink satellites in space at the end of September. It is understood that the company has most of the necessary approvals for its satellite broadband services even in India.
“Starlink builds on the foundations laid by earlier systems and is seeking to extend that proposition to broadband at a greater scale. Ultimately, commercial success will depend not just on technological advances, but on whether pricing, regulation and market demand align,” says CMR’s Ram.
For context, Starlink pricing for home broadband connections in many markets ranges between $55 for 100Mbps and $130 per month for up to 400Mbps speeds (that’s between ₹5,207 and ₹12,307). It is not confirmed if the company will maintain pricing parity in India or adopt a different pricing approach as some multinationals have.
“India already has some of the world’s cheapest mobile data and expanding 5G coverage, making it difficult for satellite broadband to compete on price in well-connected urban areas. Capacity is another constraint, as satellite networks have finite bandwidth over each coverage area,” Counterpoint’s Roy explains.
A quick check of India’s broadband and mobile data tariffs illustrates this. Airtel’s home broadband plans are priced upwards of ₹499 per month while Jio’s tariffs start at ₹399 per month. With 5G being a viable mobile broadband avenue in most cities, there is the value addition from tariff plans that bundle unlimited data. Airtel and Jio’s prepaid plans with unlimited 5G are priced at ₹349 with a 28-day validity.
“The bigger opportunity (for Satcom) lies in connecting remote villages, hill and border areas, mines, energy sites and ships, where terrestrial networks are unavailable or unreliable.” That is exactly what Starlink got right in its early years in many regions. In a market such as India, while fighting incumbents on price may be difficult for the foreseeable future, niche use-cases are where it can find immediate traction.
Satellite connectivity may also prove relevant for emergency services and e-governance. In November, Starlink and the state of Maharashtra signed a Letter of Intent (LOI), making the latter the first Indian state to do so, to connect remote and underserved districts such as Gadchiroli, Nandurbar, Washim, and Dharashiv, with e-governance, education, and healthcare services. Gujarat and Meghalaya also have similar memorandums, to explore satellite internet for remote infrastructure.
This has been Starlink’s approach everywhere.
Rather than competing with cellular networks and fibre broadband in cities, Starlink initially targeted fixed locations that terrestrial networks had ignored—rural homes, remote enterprise locations, ships, land mobility and commercial aircraft.
Starlink says more than 30,000 aircraft, including those from airlines such as Emirates, Qatar and United, now have the Aero Terminal, delivering between 250Mbps and 1Gbps speeds to passengers without any paywalls. That’s hundreds, if not thousands, of flyers experiencing the fastest internet service on transcontinental and long-haul flights.
Emirates and Qatar, for instance, were previously using Satcom data services by prominent Geneva-headquartered aviation telecommunications provider SITA OnAir and Inmarsat Global Xpress on most of their fleet. Speeds on connected devices such as smartphones or laptops would range between 0.5Mbps and 16Mbps in the real world, depending on equipment and satellite coverage in the region the aircraft was overflying.
The regulatory conversation
In India, applications for satellite broadband from Airtel, Jio, and Starlink are all in queue. HT understands that while they have requisite technical clearances, they still need a security clearance from the home ministry.
“India’s framework needs to distinguish between satellite and terrestrial services without compromising security or creating an uneven playing field. Satellite broadband should complement terrestrial networks, not be treated as either an identical service or an exempt alternative,” says Ram.
In 2010, India clamped down on satcom usage with strict licensing and permission requirements—including a Department of Telecom (DoT) license and mandatory customs clearances for travellers landing in India with satphones. .
India’s national security contentions with satellite broadband services such as Starlink include concerns about the lack of control over a network that may be abruptly turned off or slowed down (by the company; as it has reportedly done in Ukraine, data localisation, and key infrastructure such as base stations. Security and data routing are the biggest sticking points. Last year, India tightened its security framework for satellite operators with the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT) security framework for Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) providers.
It mandates that all network control centres, satellite earth station gateways and user data routing infrastructure must be physically located within India. Routing Indian user traffic through foreign gateways or inter-satellite links is prohibited. Strict geofencing must block service near international borders and sensitive areas, with active monitoring zones required within 50 kilometres of borders and coasts.
The new guidelines apply to all satellite communications services intending to operate commercially in the country, including SpaceX’s Starlink and Airtel’s Eutelsat OneWeb, with the latter also awaiting approval. In January, DoT issued a Unified License (UL) authorising GMPCS service to three companies—OneWeb India Communications Private Limited, Jio Satellite Communications Limited, and Starlink Satellite Communications Private Limited.
Days earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Starlink service speeds in the country were slowed down significantly, hindering military efforts that relied heavily on Starlink’s Starshield military service to prevent drone attacks. It is unclear whether the US administration ordered the Starlink slowdown, if it was SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s decision, or if it was a technical fault.
Counterpoint’s Roy notes a brewing development in the broader tech space, that would provide a boost for satellite broadband. “Chipmakers, device manufacturers and telecom operators are looking to integrate satellite connectivity into their products and services. In India, this could help extend connectivity to remote and underserved areas while supporting businesses in sectors such as mining, energy and logistics.”
As recent years have shown, the underlying premise of Satcom was never wrong; it was simply a generation too early. What it needed was an industrialised space programme of the 2020s, and a world entirely dependent on data, to turn the skyward dream of the 1990s into an everyday utility.
It now has.