Satellite Internet
Why it Matters?
India’s regulatory greenlighting of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service marked a significant shift in the country’s digital infrastructure landscape. Satellite internet, especially via LEO mega-constellations like Starlink, offers low-latency, resilient, and global connectivity, overcoming limitations of terrestrial networks.
What You Should Know?
It is internet delivered via satellites instead of terrestrial networks.
It overcomes terrain barriers, disaster disruption, and rural connectivity gaps.
Orbits used:
GEO (35,786 km): Large coverage, high latency.
MEO (2,000–35,786 km): Medium coverage, moderate latency.
LEO (<2,000 km): Low latency, small coverage, requires large constellations.
Major Players are Starlink (SpaceX), OneWeb, Viasat, AST SpaceMobile.
Advantages offered are:
Civil Uses: Telemedicine, precision farming, education, smart cities, IoT, navigation, disaster monitoring, all terrain coverage, resilience in emergencies.
Defence Uses: Secure battlefield comms (Ukraine war example), border areas like Siachen, disaster coordination.
Security Risks: Illegal device use by insurgents/drug traffickers; regulation difficulty due to global coverage.