Elon Musk’s Starlink program has hit hurdles in India before its beta test. According to a report from The Economic Times, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was told by Broadband India Forum to block Elon Musk’s Starlink program from pre-selling its beta services in India.

According to the report, the President of the Broadband India, TV Ramachandran Forum claimed that the Starlink does not have the permissions needed to offer the services it plans to implement in India. It should be noted that the Broadband India Forum also represents tech industry giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and more.

According to the Forum, Musk owned Starlink hasn’t acquired any satellite frequency authorization from the ISRO and Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Moreover, the Forum also claims that Starlink does not have its own ground or earth stations in the country to offer the planned beta services.

TV Ramachandran said that Starlink is “non-compliant” to some of the existing guidelines and this is a huge hurdle in execution of its commercial launch.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink would make its debut in 2022 and also announced a beta phase of the service starting 2021 in India. The beta service of the Starlink service starts from a fully refundable deposit of $99 (Rs. 7,000) and if implemented, will compete with some of the scheduled satellite internet services such as Bharti Group’s OneWeb and Amazon’s Kuiper Project.

More about Starlink Project

When the word Elon Musk is said, one may think of an electric car manufactured by Tesla, or his space-exploration company called SpaceX, or his Tweets which has the power to increase the price of cryptocurrencies. One may also imagine the smiling face of the South African billionaire that’s currently the second-richest human on the planet.

But there’s another venture that gets overshadowed by these aspects of Musk: Starlink. Starlink is a venture owned by Elon Musk that seeks to provide satellite-based internet connections to every corner on the planet through its network of private satellites that are currently orbiting around Earth.

Starlink has a plethora of satellites around the planet. This development of the “constellation” of these satellites started as early as 2015 with its first prototype launched into Earth’s orbit in 2018.

Since then, SpaceX has sent more than a thousand Starlink satellites into the space through more than 20 successful launch missions. Recently, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites into the Space from the renowned Kennedy Space Centre. SpaceX used its relaunchable and landable Falcon 9 rocket to send these satellites. Four more launches took place in February and currently the starlink constellation consists of nearly 1,300 satellites that are orbiting around Earth.

Who is Starlink aimed towards?

Starlink’s mission is to give internet access to people across the world, especially those who live in the corners of the world where access to high-speed broadband isn’t possible due to logistical reasons. Starlink’s website says, “Starlink is ideally suited for areas of the globe where connectivity has typically been a challenge,” the Starlink website reads. “Unbounded by traditional ground infrastructure, Starlink can deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable or completely unavailable.”

How can one connect to Starlink?

Connecting to a Starlink service is fairly simple. All one needs to do is set up a satellite dish at their home, receive the signal, the signal will be converted into bandwidth which will pass to the router. The company offers an Android/iOS app which will make the use of AR (augmented reality) that will help users pick the best location where they can put their receivers.

What are the speeds one would get using Starlink?

As for the speeds of Starlink internet service, the website says, “Users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50 to 150 megabits per second and latency from 20 to 40 milliseconds in most locations over the next several months.

“As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically,” the website adds

Recently Musk took to Twitter saying he is expecting Starlink service to double its top speeds to up to 300 Mbps by 2021 end.