Satellite broadband delivers internet by beaming it between a dish at your home and satellites in space — no cables or towers needed. The big distinction is orbit. GEO (geostationary) satellites sit very high up, so they cover huge areas but the signal round-trip adds noticeable lag, which makes video calls and gaming feel sluggish. LEO (low-earth-orbit) networks like Starlink use many satellites much closer to the ground, cutting that lag dramatically and giving a responsive, everyday-usable connection. For most home users, LEO is the one that finally makes satellite feel like "real" broadband.

It's arriving. Several providers — including Starlink, JioSpaceFiber (Jio-SES) and Eutelsat OneWeb — have been working through India's licensing and spectrum approvals, with services rolling out in phases, and Amazon Kuiper is expected to follow. Availability, plans and pricing are early-stage and change frequently, and rollout is uneven across regions. Everything shown on this page is illustrative for that reason. Tell us your location and we'll check which services are genuinely available and approved for you right now, rather than relying on a headline launch. For larger enterprise, VSAT and multi-site satellite connectivity, see our dedicated Satellite Internet (enterprise) page.

Satellite has two costs: a one-time hardware kit (the dish/terminal and router), which is a sizeable upfront outlay, and a monthly subscription that's generally higher than fibre or fixed wireless. That's the trade-off for reaching places nothing else can. Business and mobility plans cost more than residential. Because pricing is still settling in India, treat the figures here as indicative and let us confirm current hardware and plan costs with the provider before you commit — so you see the true total, not just the monthly line.

Yes. Satellite needs a clear line of sight to the open sky, so the dish must be mounted away from tall trees, walls or roofs that block the view — placement matters a lot. Very heavy rain or storms can briefly reduce speeds or interrupt the signal (often called "rain fade"), though modern LEO systems handle typical weather well and recover quickly. We factor placement and your local conditions into the recommendation so you get the most reliable setup.

Satellite is best thought of as the option for when nothing else reaches you. If fibre (FTTH) is available at your building, it's almost always faster, more consistent and cheaper. If there's no fibre but a decent mobile signal, fixed wireless (FWA) or 4G/5G home WiFi is usually cheaper than satellite. Choose satellite when you're genuinely beyond all of those — a remote farm, hills, an island or an off-grid site — or need a fully independent backup. We'll honestly tell you if a cheaper terrestrial option reaches you first; see our Fibre, Fixed Wireless Access and 4G/5G Home WiFi pages for those routes. This is general guidance, not a firm quote.