In India satellite services are illegal except Inmarsat because they have a deal with them for surveillance. That's probably why. You can get in serious trouble there for carrying a satellite phone too.
China's another one that doesn't permit them. Which, together with India, means that the majority of the world's population lives in countries where they are (mostly) banned.
I wonder what's going to happen now that sat features are becoming ubiquitous on mobile phones. Apple has it (with Globalstar), Motorola/Bullitt is introducing it right now (with Inmarsat), and Qualcomm is introducing the features in Q3 this year (with Iridium)
This means that banning sat phones will no longer be as easy as it once was, as most visitors will carry one right in their pocket.
https://blog.telestial.com/2017/11/countries-where-satellite...