India’s biggest mobile operator is reaching for orbit. Reliance Jio says it is exploring a low-Earth-orbit satellite network of 1,600 to 1,650 satellites to bring broadband to parts of the country that still lack reliable connectivity, putting the company on a collision course with Starlink and other global satellite internet players.
Reliance Jio is one of the strongest contenders in the market because of its scale, pricing power, and existing customer base. The plan is aimed at remote villages, island communities, and border regions where towers alone are too expensive to deploy, which is exactly where satellite broadband starts to make commercial sense.
Jio satellite network plans
Aakash Ambani, chairman of Reliance Jio, said the company is evaluating the build-out and wants to work with leading satellite operators as part of the effort. The proposed constellation would sit around 650 km above Earth, and Jio says the project could cost $10-15 billion and take 2-3 years to implement.
- Satellite count: 1,600-1,650
- Orbit: low Earth orbit
- Altitude: about 650 km
- Estimated cost: $10-15 billion
- Target timeline: 2-3 years
Why Starlink is the obvious benchmark
Jio is not starting from zero. It is already one of the world’s largest mobile service providers by subscriber count, and that gives it something most satellite entrants envy: a built-in customer base, distribution, and billing muscle. Starlink may have the global brand, but Jio has a local advantage in a market where price sensitivity and scale matter far more than glossy launch videos.
The company also has a head start on the ground side. It is building stations in India that will support both partner-operated satellite networks and its own future spacecraft, which is the sensible part of the plan. Jio Platforms has already signed a partnership with Luxembourg’s SES for satellite broadband services in India, though SES mainly relies on geostationary and medium-Earth-orbit satellites rather than the low-orbit fleet that usually delivers faster consumer broadband.
The case for rural broadband
Jio framed the project as a fix for the places conventional networks have not reached, and that is the real business case here. Satellite broadband is expensive, but so is building towers where roads are bad, terrain is hostile, or the population is too thin to justify heavy infrastructure. For India’s telcos, the unanswered question is not whether satellite internet will exist, but who gets to own the customer relationship when it does.
There is also a wider playbook here. Around the world, telecom operators are trying to blend terrestrial 5G with space-based coverage rather than treat them as separate businesses. Jio says it plans to move its entire subscriber base to 5G networks by 2030, so the company is clearly betting that future connectivity will be a hybrid: towers in cities, satellites at the edges, and one bill in the middle.
What Jio will need to do next
The big question is whether Jio wants to build a full Starlink-style constellation or use partnerships to get to market faster while the heavier infrastructure is assembled. If it can turn its domestic scale into a satellite service that is both affordable and widely available, the company could force a much less friendly competitive fight than global operators may have expected in India.