Overview
- In an interview published on Friday, Sunil Bharti Mittal urged the government to ensure the technical authority to disable or limit satellite broadband remains under Indian control.
- The 'kill switch' is the operator control and ground-gateway ability to disable single terminals, entire regions or whole satellite networks, which gives whoever controls gateways the power to interrupt or reroute traffic.
- Mittal said Eutelsat OneWeb is technically operational over India and that government agencies have used terminals for emergency needs, but he and other operators are awaiting final security clearances, in-country gateway rules and spectrum assignments before full commercial launch.
- He warned against reliance on a single foreign provider, citing reported restrictions on Starlink during the Russia-Ukraine conflict and pointing to Europe’s multi‑billion-euro OneWeb effort as an example of governments seeking assured control.
- If India requires domestic routing, monitoring and gateway control, the move could strengthen national security and emergency resilience but it may slow rollouts, raise costs and shape which companies can offer service in remote and maritime areas.