Even as the buzz around hi-speed broadband-via-satellite gains momentum, including India, the man (and the company) that upped the sexiness quotient of such a drab subject — SpaceX founder Elon Musk — feels the India connection is still being figured out.

Asked on Twitter when Star link would likely commence services in India, Musk replied that his team was still “figuring out the regulatory approval process”, Advanced Television reported.

India could well be extra important in Star link’s ambitions given that Sunil Mittal-backed One Web (co-owned by the British government and several other companies like Hughes) is promising an India service by mid-2022.

OneWeb’s CEO Neil Masterson feels that the two companies — OneWeb and Star link — might be competing in some areas.

“There are some areas where we will compete, I suspect, particularly around serving governments, but governments will always buy more than one service,” Masterson recently told CNBC, the Advanced Television  report elaborated

As earlier reported by Indianbroadcastingworld.com, OneWeb has already obtained most of the regulatory permissions from the Indian Government, including those from the Department of Telecommunications.

OneWeb executives, who participated in a virtual meeting organized by India’s Department of Telecoms over a month back, on the call went on record to state the company would look at forging partnerships with Indian organisations to source components that could be needed for the hardware.

Similar sourcing carrot was also dangled by SpaceX in the passing. Its sibling, the carmaker Tesla, has already promised setting up a manufacturing unit in a South Indian State for electric vehicles and has been lobbying for a customs duty cut.

Meanwhile, Indian Government officials have said a new spacecom policy could be announced soon with an aim to boost the country’s broadband networks via low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems and also encourage public-private participation so private sector satellite players could contribute to India’s space developments.

“The Department of Space (DoS) will notify the new Spacecom policy very shortly as it has concluded all activities relating to its formulation, and only administrative approval is pending,” R Shakhya, DDG (satellite) in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), had said at a satcoms webinar mid-August, according to a report in the  Economic Times.

Separately, Sakhya said DoT will shortly seek the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s views on issuing geography-specific permits for LEO constellation operators, especially as several satellite service companies are not keen on pan-India permits and intend offering satellite broadband connectivity only in some markets.