Indian move eclipses a lodestar
Elon Musk’s golden touch fails to work in India, as New Delhi scuttles his plan to start a broadband internet service
By Hari Kumar
No one can deny one thing about Elon Musk. He has the Midas touch. Whether putting electric vehicles on the road, sending cryptocurrencies soaring, or offering satellite-based internet, Musk is blazing a new trail in every field he has ventured into – let alone the advances his Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab has made in automation.
The fortunes favour the brave, and Musk has become one of the world’s wealthy men with his foray into futuristic endeavours. His prodigious ambition to provide blanket broadband coverage to countries across the globe also seemed to be going well, at least till recently.
SpaceX, a Musk enterprise, already has hundreds of satellites positioned around the Earth, for its Starlink broadband network, which people in 12 countries are accessing, with most reporting – pardon the pun – out-of-the-world speeds.
As The Economist pointed out, it is not that Musk has come up with a brainwave; he only tweaked old ideas and retrofitted them with new technology to kickstart technological dreams like electric cars and high-speed internet.
“Satellite internet is not a new idea. But, as he has already done with both rockets and electric cars, Mr Musk believes he can make transformative improvements to an old technology. Existing services rely on satellites in high orbits. That allows them to cover plenty of ground. But it also means that many customers must share a single satellite, which limits capacity, while the round trip signals must make to and from high orbit adds irritating delays. The result is that satellite internet is usually treated as a last resort when nothing else is available.”
So, Musk and his Starlink team came up with this project to send thousands of satellites into space to orbit closer to the Earth, making a constellation of them. This initiative is expected to surmount the difficulty in extending high-speed internet coverage to remote areas and challenging terrain.
The idea is attractive to countries like Australia with vast, inhospitable terrains and countries like India, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc., where fast internet coverage remains confined to urban areas. According to one report, fifty per cent of India’s 1.4 billion population is yet to get into the cyber world due to the high cost of setting up a network in rural areas where returns are low. In Indonesia, thirty per cent of its 273.5 million people spread over more than 17,500 islands have no internet access. Similarly, a third of the Philippines’ 110 million people spread over 7,640 islands cannot access the internet.
The tech wizards argue that extending broadband coverage to remote areas would pave a new path for smart agriculture, e-health, and e-education, leading to economic growth and quality of life. In addition, high-speed internet will enable expanding application of internet-based gadgets, self-driving cars, and innovative city projects.
It is not just Starlink that is eyeing this vast opportunity. Amazon’s Kuiper and UK government’s One Web project are also looking to enter the global market with similar services. China, meanwhile, has a plan for a 12,000-satellite constellation for its own broadband services.
When all of them get going, how thousands of satellites circling the Earth will affect the space environment is unknown right now.
In his usual style, Musk is not waiting for others to thrash things out. Starlink has placed enough satellites to sell subscriptions for its service in different countries. According to some reports, SpaceX plans to eventually have up to 12,000 satellites.
The big prize it hoped to catch was India that needed help for providing coverage across the 3.29-million-km2 country.
The Indian subsidiary of Starlinks had aimed for luring 200,000 users by the end of 2022, spread over several rural areas of the country. About 5,000 customers have already signed up despite a hefty US$450 initial and US$99 per month charges.
Despite such initial response, Musk’s plan is now mired in trouble. The Indian government has asked the public not to subscribe to this service as the company is not locally registered. Local rules allow only companies incorporated in India to offer such a service.
Musk’s ambitious satellite plan began encountering difficulties even before the Indian move halted its progress. Wrapping a constellation of satellites around the Earth had drawn protests from astronomers as soon as the idea surfaced. They complained that these bright satellites streaming across their telescopes (as seen over Auckland, New Zealand, below) and radars were complicating their studies while the use of radio bandwidth interfered with some space-exploring antennas.
Musk quickly complied. SpaceX tweaked the next batch of satellites with less reflective material so that the astronomers could get an unfettered view of the celestial bodies.
Then, China complained. SpaceX satellites, it claimed, are causing problems for its space station Tiangong while it, indeed, is planning to position a 12,000-satellite constellation for its broadband services. Beijing urged Washington to step in and carry out its obligations to “protect the safety of astronauts” under a 1967 treaty on the peaceful use of space.
Half a century ago, the United States and the Soviet Union had agreed to conduct space experiments for the collective good of humanity. A lot has since changed. The arrival of communication satellites and internet-based weaponry adds a different dimension. The US, Russia, China, and India have demonstrated their ability to destroy satellites. The technology could become a crucial weapon in future warfare as cyber weapons could be a core part of the arsenals.
Even the experimental show of blowing up satellites by these countries has alarmed the space scientists as these manoeuvres left thousands of pieces of debris floating in the sky, which could someday pose a threat to the satellites and life on Earth.
A possible attack on a country’s satellite also brings another problem: retaliatory action. The US-based website, Defenseone.com reported recently that a top official of the newly created Space Force warned, a strike on US assets could spark a conflict across the land, air, sea, and cyber domains.
It is into this mix that Musk and his fellow billionaires step in with their space exploration plans, like factories in outer space and colonies on the moon and Mars. The idea raises some ethical issues like what kind of rules will apply to outer space and who will have the final say on matters of dispute arising a long way away from the Earth.
While the Antarctic Treaty is a model that nations can follow and haggle over space matters at the United Nations, rules for private companies are grey. Earth orbit is a natural resource without environmental protections; we are now witnessing its industrialization, the US-based Science magazine said in a recent editorial.
Even an accidental collision in space could lead to suspicions about the reasons and the damages it could cause. However, Musk dismisses such fears saying there is enough room for everyone to coexist peacefully in space.
But the man with the golden touch should keep one thing in mind. All that glitters out there may not turn out to be gold, as he just found out in India.
Thanks Hari👌👍