Can Starlink win India’s internet war?

Elon Musk says Starlink will be “affordable”.

But in a country where internet data costs next to nothing, can it compete with the likes of Jio? That’s what we explore in today’s Finshots.Before we get into today’s story, a quick note from the Finshots team!Ditto is hiring a Performance Marketing Executive. If you have hands-on experience running campaigns on Meta Ads and Google Ads, and enjoy working on campaigns that drive measurable results, we’d love to hear from you.Think this sounds like you? Click here to apply.Now, on to today’s story.The StoryOf late, you may have seen Elon Musk making a barrage of frustrated comments about the Indian government and domestic corporates, particularly Mukesh Ambani.If you haven’t, here’s some context.

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Musk isn’t happy with how the Indian government is handling Starlink’s final approval to launch its satellite internet service in India.For the uninitiated, satellite internet delivers connectivity through satellites orbiting the Earth, rather than fibre optic cables or mobile towers. And Starlink uses thousands of small satellites orbiting relatively close to Earth to provide this service.But there’s a catch. Unlike regular broadband, where providers can expand capacity by laying more cables or setting up more mobile towers, satellite internet has limited capacity that must be shared among customers in the same coverage area.