Gagandeep Kaur

Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, is facing stiff resistance from Indonesian internet service providers (ISPs). The Indonesia Internet Service Provider Association is asking the government to ban Starlink’s license to sell services to consumers because ISPs see satellite provider as a threat to their market share. The ISPs have invested heavily in setting up a terrestrial network.

Several satellite firms, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, Amazon's Project Kuiper and Bharti Airtel and the British Government's OneWeb, have made a beeline for the Indian market. A key reason is that 50 percent of India's vast population of around 1.3. billion is yet to be connected, mainly because of the high cost of setting up a network in rural areas with low returns spread over a long time.