Bharti Airtel, the second largest telco in India after Reliance Jio, has struck a deal with SpaceX to extend the availability of the Starling LEO satellite broadband system, to Airtel Africa, which covers 14 African markets.
The move means that a significant portion of the 160 million strong population and thousands of micro and small businesses in these 14 markets – which include Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania – will have access to broadband with Starlink kits offered by Airtel Africa.
Airtel could smooth regulatory barriers
Starlink is operational in 16 markets in Africa, but it is facing regulatory barriers in other African countries. Its tie-up with Airtel Africa is expected to smooth out any issues with regulators in the five markets within Airtel Africa’s overall footprint where Starlink is not yet operational.
The deal for these markets – and Airtel Africa’s footprint overall – is similar to the one in India, where Starlink is not yet licensed per se but is prepping itself to offer satellite broadband via Airtel Africa’s parent company, Bharti Airtel.
Rural India SMEs could get a boost from Starlink
The deal between Starlink and Bharti Airtel was struck as recently as March 2025, as did Reliance Jio in a separate deal with Starlink. For India, the opportunity is huge: according to the Confederation of Indian Industry, of the 63 million SMEs in the country, more than 51% are based in rural India. Despite exponential improvements in mobile connectivity across the country, traditional telcos have had difficulty in connecting up rural areas.
Given the economic opportunity for rural areas, costs saved by Starlink on terrestrial rollouts, and no obvious competitive clash with urban areas due to Starlink’s higher upfront equipment and monthly connectivity costs, it is probable that the India government will authorise Starlink to work in conjunction with the likes of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.
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By GlobalDataThe addressable opportunity in both India and Africa for the two companies lies in institutions such as remote Airtel retail stores, existing Airtel business customers with rural outposts, educational institutions, health centres, logistical businesses and agricultural workers needing accurate supply chain tracking facilities, digital marketing businesses, remote tourist hotspots, and others generally requiring a more robust quality of service.
Starlink’s strategy
For Starlink, its strategy is to embed itself as much as possible in the Indian and African telco ecosystem before its other competitors arrive on the scene, whether as D2C or B2B satellite operators. These include Amazon with its Project Kuiper; AST SpaceMobile, which is working with Vodafone Group and Vodacom; and Telesat Lightspeed, which has a partnership with Orange and Orange Africa.
Competition is expected to heat up quite rapidly as telcos and satellite vendors will be striking a myriad of partnerships with one another across borders to boost connectivity. The result will be that satellite broadband prices per MB coming down quite rapidly, which will only benefit business and enterprise customers more.
