Jio Satellite Plan: Reliance Unveils a 1,650-Satellite Network to Rival Starlink

by Zaira Varghese 21. June 2026 Tech News 0

Reliance’s new Jio satellite plan is the boldest move yet by an Indian company into space-based internet, with the conglomerate revealing intentions to build a low-Earth-orbit constellation of up to 1,650 satellites to rival Elon Musk’s Starlink. The announcement, made at Reliance Industries’ 49th annual general meeting, signals that the race to beam broadband from orbit is going global.

For Mukesh Ambani’s telecom empire — already India’s largest mobile carrier — the leap from terrestrial towers to orbiting hardware is a bid to lock in control of the country’s communications backbone for the next decade.

Inside the Jio Satellite Constellation

According to details shared at the AGM, the Jio satellite network would place roughly 1,600 to 1,650 spacecraft in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 650 kilometers. The fleet is designed to deliver two things at once: high-speed space-based broadband for homes and businesses, and direct-to-device connectivity that can reach a phone with no ground equipment in between.

Jio Platforms managing director Akash Ambani framed the effort as building “long-term sovereign capability” — a homegrown alternative rather than dependence on foreign operators. As Bloomberg first reported, the company is weighing the constellation as Starlink continues to face regulatory hurdles in India.

Why Jio Is Going to Orbit

India has hundreds of millions of people in regions where laying fiber or building cell towers is slow and costly. Satellites flip that math: coverage arrives the moment the network switches on, from the Himalayas to remote island chains.

Constellation size: up to 1,650 LEO satellites
Orbit altitude: roughly 650 kilometers
Services: fixed broadband plus direct-to-device
Goal: nationwide coverage and “sovereign” infrastructure

To move quickly, Jio also plans to lease capacity from existing global providers while it builds its own fleet — a hybrid approach that gets a service to market before the first homegrown satellites are even launched.

The Jio Satellite Challenge to Starlink

The scale gap is stark. Starlink already operates roughly 10,000 satellites worldwide, a head start measured in years and billions of dollars. The reported price tag for Jio’s effort runs to about $15 billion — serious money, but a fraction of what SpaceX has spent building and launching its network.

Where Jio holds an edge is on home turf. It owns the customers, the spectrum relationships, the retail footprint and the political weight inside India’s vast market. If regulators favor a domestic champion — and they often do — Starlink could find the world’s most populous country surprisingly hard to crack.

What Comes Next

Jio still has to clear licensing, secure launch capacity and actually build hardware at scale, none of which is trivial. But the intent is now public, and the message to global satellite operators is clear: the next front in the broadband-from-space war runs straight through India. Expect rivals, regulators and rocket makers to respond quickly.