Pakistani lawmakers have raised fresh concerns about Starlink’s presence in the country, with Senator Afnan Ullah Khan of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz alleging during a Senate session that the American satellite internet service is operating in parts of Balochistan without formal authorisation, even as the company’s license application continues to await regulatory clearance. The Secretary for Information Technology contradicted the claim, stating that there is no confirmed evidence of Starlink service currently operating within Pakistan’s borders, leaving the matter unresolved with conflicting positions from within the government itself.
The allegations carry particular weight given the technical reality of low-earth orbit satellite constellations: because Starlink’s coverage is determined by the position of its satellites in orbit rather than ground-based infrastructure within Pakistan, the service is technically capable of providing connectivity across Pakistan’s geography, including border regions, without the company operating any physical presence or licensed ground stations in the country. This is precisely what makes the regulatory challenge significant. PTA Chairman Major General (Retd.) Hafeez ur Rehman confirmed during the session that Starlink has registered locally, plans to establish ground stations in Pakistan, and submitted a formal license application on February 24, 2022, but the application remains pending security clearance from the Ministry of Interior and approval from the Pakistan Space Activities Regulatory Board, which is still in the process of formulating the rules that would govern satellite internet operations in the country.
The Starlink licensing debate has become further entangled with political objections linked to Elon Musk’s public statements. Lawmakers at earlier Senate Standing Committee sessions in January 2025, chaired by Senator Palwasha Khan, accused Musk of aligning with narratives hostile to Pakistan and propagating misinformation through social media. Senator Afnan Ullah Khan has gone further, proposing that Starlink should only be granted an operating license if Musk issues a public apology for his remarks, a condition that would be unusual in the history of telecommunications licensing and reflects the degree to which the controversy has extended beyond regulatory process into political territory. Digital rights advocates, meanwhile, have raised separate concerns about Musk’s broader political positioning, linking those controversies to the difficulties Starlink faces in obtaining clearance.
The security dimension of the debate was underscored by Senator Khan’s reference to Starlink’s performance during the January 2026 protests in Iran, where the Iranian government deployed military-grade jamming systems targeting Starlink’s frequency bands and reportedly confiscated tens of thousands of smuggled terminals, marking the first verified instance of a nation-state defeating Starlink at national scale. For Pakistan’s security establishment, which must sign off on the Interior Ministry clearance before PTA can proceed, that episode provides a concrete geopolitical reference point for evaluating how a foreign-controlled satellite internet service could operate within and around Pakistan’s sensitive western border regions. With PSARB’s rules still under development and security clearance unresolved, a definitive timeline for Starlink’s Pakistani launch remains as uncertain as it has been since the original application was filed over four years ago.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
