India blocks the Jio-SES joint venture from launching service
What happened
India's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has formed a Group of Secretaries (GoS) to review "signal spillage" security concerns before granting final commercial launch clearances to satellite broadband operators. All three operators with active licences — Starlink, Eutelsat-OneWeb (Bharti-backed), and the Jio-SES joint venture (Orbit Connect India, using SES MEO satellites) — are explicitly named and blocked. As of June 2026, none has launched commercial services. SES VP Harsh Verma said services were "a few months away" in July 2025; 11 months later, still no launch. Specific MHA concerns: (a) satellite signal extending beyond intended coverage into border zones (India-Pakistan, India-China), creating intelligence risk; (b) data sovereignty — DoT added 29 additional security regulations in May 2026 requiring call logs and user data stored on Indian servers and real-time interception capability enforceable on demand; (c) June 24, 2026: DoT notified the Telecommunications (Authorisation for Provision of Principal Telecommunication Services) Rules, 2026 — replacing the old licensing regime with a framework-level authorisation system that adds security compliance as a structural prerequisite, not a one-time check.
Read-across for SES
Three compounding implications. (a) Revenue: Orbit Connect India holds all licences but generates zero commercial revenue. The stated SES expectation of service launch "within 2025" has already slipped 11+ months. With an explicit MHA GoS review now formally established, this is not a clerical delay — it is a structured security review with no stated resolution timeline. India MEO revenue from this JV should be modelled at zero through at least H1 2027 unless MHA GoS publishes a clearance framework. (b) Structural: The June 24 Telecom Authorisation Rules replace licensing with a security-compliance-as-prerequisite framework. Any future application by Jio's new 1,650-sat LEO constellation must satisfy these same requirements — meaning India's regulatory architecture now systematically privileges operators that can demonstrate full data localisation and interception compliance, which favours domestically controlled ventures (pure Jio LEO) over foreign-technology JVs. SES's competitive position in India narrows even as the domestic alternative (Jio LEO) gets easier to authorise. (c) Strategic: The MHA squeeze applies equally to Starlink, giving SES partial cover — the Indian government is not singling out SES, it is asserting national security sovereignty over all foreign satellite signals. SES should actively position Jio-SES's Indian data localisation architecture as stronger than Starlink's to accelerate its own clearance ahead of Starlink.
As the brief filed it
India MHA security review explicitly names Jio-SES joint venture alongside Starlink and OneWeb as blocked from commercial launch — all three hold licences but none has launched; SES's India MEO revenue window is frozen at the service-launch stage, not merely "closing."