Six days of internet blackout in Iran: Starlink now available free of charge
Last week, the Iranian regime cut off all internet access in the country; since then, very little information has been revealed. Starlink is intended to help.
(Image: Karolis Kavolelis/Shutterstock.com)
Six days after a total internet shutdown began in Iran and against the backdrop of a drastic escalation of the situation, SpaceX has made the Starlink satellite internet available in the country free of charge. This is reported by Bloomberg, citing an organization that supports people in Iran in building secure communication networks; SpaceX itself has not yet commented on this. At the same time, it is unclear what the move can still achieve: The regime in Iran has reportedly been specifically targeting the small Starlink antennas and those people who use them to maintain contact with the outside world for days. While numerous images and videos were sent from the country immediately after the total internet blackout began, this has now noticeably decreased.
The move was made public by the organization Holistic Resilience, which helps people in Iran secure internet access, Bloomberg writes. According to reports, a person at SpaceX also anonymously confirmed the move, while Elon Musk's space company has not yet made any public statement on the matter. Just over a week ago, SpaceX made its own satellite internet available to people in Venezuela free of charge on a temporary basis. There, as in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the service is illegal, so the necessary antennas cannot simply be purchased. In Iran, they also have to be hidden because their use is punishable. Nevertheless, more than 50,000 devices are said to be in use, estimates Holistic Resilience.
Bloody crackdown on protests
The latest wave of protests in Iran began before the turn of the year. The trigger was a sudden devaluation of the currency against the backdrop of a massive economic crisis. As a result, more and more people took to the streets, whereupon the regime shut down the internet last Thursday. The fears that this was intended to hide a bloody attempt to suppress the demonstrations have apparently come true. According to human rights organizations, several thousand people have been killed since then, and the first execution in connection with the protests is scheduled for this Wednesday.
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Starlink from SpaceX has been available since 2019, with more than 9,400 active satellites providing high-speed internet connections on all continents. However, this requires mobile antennas, which have been smuggled into Iran for years. The service is now so old and the protest waves in Iran so frequent that the current one is not even the first in which Starlink has helped with communication with the world. In the fall of 2022, Elon Musk switched on the service for the Islamic Republic for the first time. At that time, however, the necessary ground infrastructure was not yet sufficiently developed. This has since changed.
(mho)
