Overview
- Mittal, who spoke to PTI on Friday, November 13, 2026, said India must keep the technical ability to cut, throttle or reroute satellite links on its own soil to preserve strategic control.
- He cited reports from the Russia–Ukraine conflict about outages on Starlink as evidence that foreign-controlled networks can affect military and emergency operations.
- Mittal said OneWeb’s network is already operational in India and has been used occasionally by government agencies for emergency work, but full commercial service awaits final government security clearances and authorisations.
- He urged India to avoid dependence on a single provider by licensing multiple operators and by routing ground gateways and monitoring through India to reduce the risk of external shutdowns.
- Regulators face a trade-off between faster commercial rollout and national security because in-country gateways, monitoring rules and spectrum approvals will shape when and which operators can offer services and how those services reach remote communities.