Elon Musk's SpaceX To Hire in India as Starlink Aims to Give Rural Areas High-Speed Internet

Starlink, the satellite internet arm of Elon Musk's SpaceX, has launched pre-bookings for its services in India with subsidised rates. The firm says it has received more than 5,000 orders.

SpaceX has started to recruit people in India to roll out its services to two-thirds of the country earlier than had been anticipated.

Sanjay Bhargava, SpaceX's country director, has said that the firm is looking for two "rock stars" to fill the country-based roles of Director of Rural Transformation and Executive Assistant.

The Director of Rural Transformation is a technical appointment and, "is another small step towards catalysing and accelerating transformation starting with rural India," Bhargava said.

The firm expects the Director of the Rural Transformation to help expand broadband connectivity in selected geographical areas.

"As and when there are other vacancies, they will appear on the jobs board. I do not expect any more until we are commercially licensed," Bhargava said.

Earlier this month, Starlink promised data speeds in the range of 5 to 150 megabits per second in rural areas. The company will be charging a deposit of $99 per customer on pre-booking orders.

Bhargava said that discussions with broadband service providers will start once the 12 Phase-1 aspirational districts are identified by the government's top policy think-tank, Niti Aayog.

According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India report, rural internet penetration was three times faster than in urban areas. The rural internet user base in 2020 was 299 million but around 70 percent of the rural population still lacks broadband facilities.