Elon Musk’s Starlink plans Mumbai demo to show security and tech compliance: All you need to know

Elon Musk’s Starlink is set to conduct demo runs on October 30 and 31 in Mumbai, according to a report by PTI. Reportedly, the demo run is aimed at showing compliance with the security and technical conditions for satellite broadband services.

​The demo runs will reportedly be done before law enforcement agencies and will be based on provisional spectrum assigned to Starlink. Starlink is said to be showing compliance with the security and technical conditions of Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) authorization.

​Ahead of Starlink’s planned entry into the Indian market, the demo runs mark an important step as the company looks to secure necessary clearances before its commercial services go live in the country.

​Starlink has plans to establish nine gateway earth stations across top Indian cities like Mumbai, Noida, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Lucknow. The company has reportedly applied for 600 gigabits per second capacity through its Gen 1 satellite constellation.

​Earlier in the month, Starlink India market access director Parnil Urdhwareshe had said that the company is “excited” and fully focused on being ready to offer Indians a secure, compliant, and high-quality broadband experience.

​On the sidelines of India Mobile Congress 2025, Urdhwareshe said (as quoted by PTI), “We’re just focused on being ready to provide Indians who want that option with a compliant, secure, and great experience. And we’re really excited with all of the fantastic work that the government is doing, and you see this in concert across the Ministry of Communications, the TRAI, the DoS (Department of Space), InSpace, the DPIIT, everybody’s been doing a whole lot of work to make sure that option is made available to people who want it.”

​Starlink’s office in Mumbai

​Starlink is said to have chosen Mumbai as its hub of operations and has also selected a 1,294 sq ft office on the ground floor of the Boomerang commercial complex in suburban Chandivali, as per an earlier report by Mint.

​The company will face off against Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite after receiving the necessary clearances from the government. All of these companies are awaiting the allocation of spectrum for satellite broadband, which is currently being worked on by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

​The kind of speeds that Starlink will offer and the prices it will charge are speculation at this point, but reports have suggested that the service could serve download speeds ranging from 25 Mbps to 220 Mbps while charging a one-time hardware kit fee of around ₹33,000 along with monthly subscriptions of around ₹3,000–4,000.