Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, told reporters that his group had moved further along the regulatory approval process for satellite internet services in India than Elon Musk's Starlink, pointing to the extensive groundwork laid over several years in preparation for the rollout. The remarks came at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, where a question put to Mittal centred on comments Musk had directed at India's telecom billionaires ahead of Starlink's planned entry into the country.
Mittal confirmed that Bharti's application for regulatory clearances had been lodged five years prior. He noted that the company's ground-based network had been running for three years at that stage, with its satellites holding positions above India for five, yet the company remained in a queue for regulatory approvals alongside other applicants. Bharti's prolonged pursuit of the required approvals, along with its stated readiness to launch, formed the basis of his rebuttal, though his characterisation of Bharti as having advanced further through the process than Starlink reflected his own account rather than any independently verified assessment.
Mittal indicated that groundwork for bringing satellite connectivity to India had reached an advanced point, though the rollout of those services still hinged on obtaining outstanding security approvals from the relevant authorities. Once regulatory clearances are secured, Bharti would gain the ability to extend network connectivity to parts of the country that have gone without it, including isolated areas where building conventional telecom infrastructure has historically proven impractical.
Mittal described orbiting relay systems as capable of extending data access to isolated and poorly served populations without displacing ground-level networks already in place, picking up where terrestrial infrastructure leaves off.
Bharti's footprint on the African continent also came up in his remarks, with the group having already rolled out satellite services there through a tie-up with an international provider. Mittal indicated that operational track record positioned the company to pursue broader satellite connectivity across India, pending the removal of outstanding regulatory barriers.
Mittal went on to argue that the foundations of digital connectivity carry weight beyond satellite systems, with broader economic growth depending on how that infrastructure develops. Keeping levies on digital products and telecommunications as modest as possible, he contended, would allow technology to generate broader gains across the economy.
Mittal also addressed the broader international conversation on trade, geopolitical friction, and the restructuring of supply chains, putting forward the view that multinational companies had collectively enabled China to consolidate a commanding foothold across a number of industries. Pharmaceuticals, automotive components, and consumer electronics were sectors he highlighted as examples where China had established a durable production presence, adding that widespread confidence in the country's capacity to deliver reliable output at competitive cost had long underpinned those commercial arrangements, even as mounting geopolitical tensions were putting pressure on the trade relationships and supply chains that had developed around them.
Shifting away from Chinese-sourced raw materials and components poses a steep logistical hurdle for nations whose factory sectors are built around that supply chain, Mittal noted. He pointed to the scale of the challenge by observing that any country running a $100 billion annual trade deficit with China would encounter considerable difficulty cutting that gap in half, particularly when so many of its domestic industries had grown dependent on Chinese-sourced goods.
Mittal put forward the view that spreading supply chains across multiple sources had become a necessity, while tempering expectations about the pace of change — a shift he estimated would unfold over several decades, as more nations were coming to appreciate the vulnerabilities that flow from leaning too heavily on any one trading partner.
