Starlink, a global satellite communications (satcom) services provider has expanded its services to 105 countries. This includes 15 countries in Africa. The two new countries added to the list are Ghana and Botswana. On August 22, the company announced that its services are available in South Sudan. Starlink will continue to expand its services globally. In Brazil, the company has made great progress in a short span.
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"Starlink is connecting more than a quarter million active customers in Brazil with high-speed internet," Starlink said recently. The company has even said that it can connect Americans at a fraction of the cost of distributing high-speed fiber broadband services.
Starlink wants to enter the Indian market too. The company doesn't want to miss out on the largest market in the world. But, because of regulatory issues, Starlink isn't getting the necessary clearance. The Indian government has requested Starlink to provide details about its stakeholders. The satcom operator isn't complying with the request as the US government policies are not allowing it to do that. While Starlink is ready to provide the government with a letter claiming that there is no stakeholder who shares a land border with India, the government isn't willing to accept it.
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A similar thing was done by Verizon India. When the government wanted the stakeholder details, Verizon India said that while they can't provide that detail, they can confirm that there is no neighbour of India in that list. The government took the word of the company, but it turned out to be a lie later. Thus, the Indian government doesn't want to repeat its mistake again and trust a company just on the basis of words. Until Starlink can provide these crucial details to the government, its entry into India will most likely be stalled.
