Editorial with Sujit Nair | Starlink’s India Entry: What Does It Mean For Indians? | Jio | Airtel

[00:00:00] Namaskar! Welcome to another episode of Editorial. I am going to talk about SpaceX, Starlink. Actually no, I am going to talk about that but that's not the point that I want to make today. What I want to tell you today is I think there is a change in the world order.

[00:00:26] There is a change in the world order. There is a change in which governance is happening across the world. That's what I am going to talk about today. Let's get right into the show. Now, the story is slightly complicated but as we go ahead it will all get simple. So, now cut to story starts October 2024.

[00:00:58] October 2024, there was a battle between Elon Musk and Mukesh Ambani. The battle was for the satellite spectrum rights of India. Mukesh Ambani was of the opinion that the satellite spectrum should be awarded to the best bidder. Which means he wanted the entire process to be done through an auction. Elon Musk said, nay nay nay nay nay. It should not be done through an auction.

[00:01:27] It should be done through administrative process. Let the best person win. This was what Elon Musk said. Now, lo behold India went by Elon Musk's recommendation. I can't say India went by Elon Musk's recommendation. That would be a wrong statement. But India decided to award it through an administrative process. Now, that was quite a good news for Elon Musk.

[00:01:57] But he never managed to launch his Starlink in India. Because he faced one after another administrative blockade. Story October 2024. Now, let us come to November. November may story change. November may story change. There was a clash between Elon Musk's team, Starlink team and Indian administrative team.

[00:02:27] There was a clash. Indian administrative team said that Baba you misrepresented. You misrepresented a lot of things in your proposal. We don't agree to whatever you gave. There are lot of holes we see. There are lot of discrepancies that we see. This is what Indian officials says. The Starlink officials say nothing doing. Whatever we said, we are delivering. Now, at that point in time, the Minister of Telecommunication, Mr. Jyotar Aditya Sindhya,

[00:02:56] Mr. Jyotar Aditya, made a statement where he said that they have to comply. They, Mani Starlink, have to comply with all conditionalities. You have to look at it from a security perspective, making sure all the security concerns are addressed. So Mr. Sindhya said, Baba listen, whatever, whoever, you have to look at all conditionalities. And our security concerns have to be addressed, has to be looked into.

[00:03:19] So Dama Dole, as always, like a lot of government deals, this also went into a loop. Now 2025, we all know what happened. Mr. Trump became the President of United States and possibly our perspective of looking at Elon Musk and his company also changed.

[00:03:47] We also know that our good Prime Minister went to Elon Musk's house carrying a lot of gifts for his children. So that also happened. They are not related. I am just telling you that also happened. Now, cut to recent story, cut to a couple of days back, that Jio signs a deal with Elon Musk, so does Bharti Telecom.

[00:04:14] Now, Jio platform said that it will sign a deal with Elon Musk, SpaceX to bring Starlink Internet services to India. This is exactly a day after Bharti Telecom announced a similar deal. So now, Jio and Bharti both say we are going to tie up with Starlink and we are going to ensure that we bring Starlink Internet services to India. Both of them said it. Once upon a time, they were competing with each other.

[00:04:44] Like I told you, Mukesh wanted auction, Elon Musk wanted administrative decision. They were competing with each other. After 2025, things changed. Both now, Bharti Telecom, they are the two major players in India. Both of them, I have now tied up with Elon Musk and said, Chalo, we are coming with you. This is the status of Starlink. Now, let me tell you few of the benefits of Starlink.

[00:05:17] Starlink is something called as LEO, which is Lower Earth Orbiting Satellite. It is called LEO, L-E-O, Lower Earth Orbiting Satellite. What is LEO benefit? The benefit that LEO gives you is, it gives you clarity. It gives you clarity since it's closer to Earth. It gives you clarity and it also gives you tremendous speed.

[00:05:46] So these are some of the benefits that LEO gives you, that is Starlink gives you. Now, there are some flaws also that comes with it. The biggest flaw is that it is supposed to be high cost. You see, when a satellite moves at a significant pace orbiting the Earth, that satellite, the cost of maintaining that satellite is very high.

[00:06:13] And because the cost of maintaining that satellite is high, your cost for internet could go up. The tariffs that you enjoy today for your phones, for your internet, for your movies that you download and watch, and for your Netflix and others, those tariffs could go up. Could go up. I am not saying it will. I have no information today to tell you it will, but it could go up.

[00:06:41] Because the cost of Starlink is higher. The cost of maintaining Starlink is higher. The cost of maintaining LEO is higher. So therefore your cost would go up. Scalability concerns. There are huge scalability concerns because expanding Starlink network to accommodate more users without compromising on performance remains a challenge. So extending and increasing customer there will be a problem.

[00:07:10] But then that to be very fair, there was a problem even with our local suppliers here because the number of towers and then you have more users using a particular tower versus less users using another tower. So when there are more users, your communication was hampered and so on and so forth. So that did happen before. But here, this is a definite challenge. So you can't just scale up overnight. That's not possible.

[00:07:40] The third problem is weather interference. Like you have a lot of disk, disk antennas. When the weather is bad, your reception is bad, your internet network is bad. So there could be a weather interference. And lastly, but not the least is higher latency in urban areas. Compared to terrestrial broadband, Starlink may experience higher latency and lower capacity in densely populated areas, which is what I told you earlier.

[00:08:06] When the area is densely populated, the chances are you may find latency, you may find disturbance in your satellite network. So these are inherent challenges with Starlink. So like I said, I told you how the government reacted in October. I told you how the government reacted in November. That was 2024 after elections. Then I told you how the government reacted.

[00:08:34] And now people who were competing with Starlink are now eagerly tying up with Starlink and getting Starlink internet to India. Chalo, this is over. Now, you know, our IT minister was quite excited when he heard this story. He had put a tweet which said, Starlink welcome to India will be useful for remote area railway projects.

[00:09:01] This tweet, I am told, he deleted later on. So our ministers were also very excited because Elon Musk's Starlink is coming to India. Chalo. This is the story of Starlink.

[00:09:15] Now, if you remember, I told you once upon a time that, you know, if a company, if a billionaire, if a conglomerate starts controlling a political party,

[00:09:32] starts funding a political party to the extent that that fund helps the political party to win the election, then the chances are that particular business house start controlling the country that political party is governing. We had spoken about this. I had told you that possibly a lot of things that we see in India is we are going towards that path. I had spoken to you.

[00:10:03] America has always moved at a far higher pace than what we are. America has always moved at a far higher pace than the country. So currently, it looks as if Elon Musk controls America more than Donald Trump. I have been in advertising for close to 30 years of my life.

[00:10:27] Now, in 30 years, I have hardly seen a head of state endorsing a brand. I have heard stories of Mikhail Garbachev endorsing Pepsi once upon a time because he wanted Pepsi was giving him some kind of money that went into some social activity. So just because he was getting that money for social activity, he endorsed Pepsi.

[00:10:54] This is something that I had heard earlier in my career, long back in my career. But beyond which, I have never seen a serious advertising campaign that happened or that was endorsed by the head of the state. Lot of people used the head of the state. Like I remember a pen brand using a head of the state as their user but nobody endorsed.

[00:11:20] You see, Donald Trump said get in patriots while he endorsed. Hello President Trump, are you looking to buy or lease today? Well I am going to buy. And I am going to buy because number one, it is a great product, as good as it gets. And number two, because this man has devoted his energy and his life to doing this. I think he has been treated very unfairly by a very small group of people.

[00:11:49] And I just want people to know that you can't be penalized for being a patriot. And he is a great patriot. And he has also done an incredible job with Tesla and I mean nobody else has a car company started up in the last 30 years that has been successful. I don't think so. And not only successful but super successful. And because he is able to find billions and billions and billions of dollars of fraud and waste and all of the things.

[00:12:18] I mean our country is going to be very strong very soon because of a lot of the things that he has done and a lot of the things that I am doing. And there is no better team but there is no better for what we are doing. There is nobody like this and he shouldn't be penalized. And when I watched the other day I said I can't believe it. It should be the opposite. People should be going wild and they love the product. But because he is finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country.

[00:12:47] They want to penalize him in an economic sense. And I just think that is very unfair. So I just wanted to make a statement. I am going to buy one. Now here is the bad news. I am not allowed to drive. Because I have not driven a car in a long time. And I love to drive cars. But I am going to have it at the White House and I am going to let my staff use it. I am going to let people at the place use it. And they are all excited about that. I am not allowed to use it. Can you believe it?

[00:13:14] One of my great things in life is that I can, you know, I like to drive cars but I am not allowed to. Elon Musk's Tesla. So, again I spoke to you about nationalist. The nationalist feeling. Donald Trump was endorsing a private company's car. Elon Musk's car. Which is called Tesla. And Donald Trump bought a red Tesla for himself.

[00:13:43] And he said, boss, this is the Patriot's car. Literally. Like we say, Nationalist, you can vote this party. Nationalist, you can buy this car. This is what happened. Of course, the reason given was that, you know, a lot of people didn't, you know, went against his car because, you know, he supported Trump. So Trump said, I have to give you back. So, I am going to endorse your car.

[00:14:10] Now, mind you, Elon Musk is not an American born citizen. He is born in South Africa. Mind you, there are a lot of American cars including Ford, including General Motors, a lot of American cars. So, when the president who is supposed to be the head of the state says, this car is better than that car, what is he doing? It is like a father saying, this son is better than this son.

[00:14:37] It is like that. And that's exactly what's happening. So, this is a warning sign for us. Like I told you before. If you have companies, you have people, you have billionaires, you have conglomerates who are closer to the government, who funds the government, who gives the government money to fight election and that government comes into power, chances are all the others will be eliminated.

[00:15:07] Chances are we will be living in a monopoly market. A capitalist state like United States is in that route today, is going that route today. Capitalist itself by definition means multiple choices. And when the president says that listen, you know what the best car Tesla car nationalist car, where are we headed to?

[00:15:34] The point that I said, I was not talking about Starlink while my editorial started with Starlink. The point that I'm trying to say is wake up and smell the coffee. These are examples that are happening in front of us.

[00:15:53] This is how a billionaire businessman can actually influence power, can actually influence, flex his muscle. And in this case, because this is United States of America and this gentleman comes from United States of America, possibly he can flex his muscle, not just in United States, but possibly across the globe. Because at some point in time, countries like ours, we have to, we may have to compromise.

[00:16:23] We may have to accommodate because end of the day, it is trade. America buys more from us than what we sell them. So balance of trade, we gain. So we may have to agree to them. This is how a businessman can flex his muscle. And this is what happens for businessmen dominates a political party. Till I see you next time. That's tomorrow at 10.

[00:16:53] Namaskar.