(Staff article from The ALJAZEERA on 24 September 2022.)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been given the green light
by the United States government to activate the satellite internet service
Starlink to help Iranians protesting against the death of a woman in police
custody.
Access to social media and some content is tightly restricted in Iran and significant internet outages were reported across the country on Saturday, with one of the biggest mobile phone operators disrupted, leaving millions of Iranians offline.
The US Treasury
Department on Friday issued guidance expanding internet services available to
Iranians despite US sanctions on the country. The move follows deadly protests
around Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died
after being detained by “morality police” who questioned the way she was
wearing her headscarf.
Hundreds of
angry demonstrators have been arrested with crowds taking to the streets of
major cities across Iran for eight straight nights. State television said the
number of deaths in “recent riots” had risen to 35, up from 17 previously,
including at least five security personnel.
A US State
Department spokesperson said the updated licence was self-executing and “anyone
who meets the criteria outlined in this general license can proceed with their
activities without requesting additional permissions”.
Musk could not
be reached for comment or clarification regarding Starlink’s clearance to
operate in Iran. However, he said on Monday the company wanted to provide the
Starlink satellite broadband service – already provided to Ukraine for its
fight against Russia’s invasion – to Iranians and would ask for a sanctions
exception.
Iran has curbed
access to social media networks Instagram and WhatsApp amid the protests,
according to residents and internet watchdog NetBlocks. Azadeh Akbari, from the
University of Twente, said the digital shutdown in Iran is “a continuation of
decades of internet filtering by the Iranian government”.
She gave
examples of “keyboard filtering” and the arrest of journalists as a means of
cracking down on access. Akbari added with the shutdown of global cyberspace in
Iran it would be increasingly “difficult and dangerous” for members of the
public to access safe messenger apps and use methods to get around the blocks.
Speaking from
Capetown, South Africa, mobile video journalism publisher Yusuf Omar said the
Iranian government’s attempts to limit internet access is a form of “government
censorship” as well as “self-censorship” of the population.
“People we are
getting in touch with stories even if they do have access to the internet for a
couple of hours and want to send a video out. They are really afraid,” Omar
told Al Jazeera. President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Iran must “deal
decisively with those who oppose the country’s security and tranquility”,
Iranian state media reported.
Raisi’s comments
were made in a condolence telephone call to the family of a security agent
stabbed to death last week, allegedly by protesters enraged over the death of
Amini.
How does Starlink work?
Plug in the Starlink
Dish - or terminal as it's officially called - and it will automatically
connect itself to the nearest Starlink satellite in the sky, of which there are
more than 2,000. The satellite then communicates with the nearest ground
station, or gateway, which supplies the internet.
These gateways are located around the world, but
they can't be too far away from the place getting an internet connection. For a
nation such as Ukraine, there is a gateway in neighbouring Poland. The internet
connection travels from the gateway to the satellite, and then to the terminal.
Users simply plug their router into their terminal and the tech takes care of
the rest.
One of the major
issues with previous iterations of satellite internet is the delay, but
Starlink's constellation of satellites is a relatively new technology - they
operate in low-Earth orbit, so the delay is measured in milliseconds rather
than seconds.
Usually this
would come at a cost. In the UK, it will cost you £495 for the dish (including
shipping), and then a subscription of £89 per month. The terminals need a clear view of the sky in
order to work, and there is an app to help users find a suitable spot to place
them.
Once set up, the
speed they offer varies but one user who already had access to a terminal
tweeted on Monday that he had reached speeds in excess of 200 Mbps (megabits
per second) for a while.
Ukraine Urges Musk’s Starlink to Keep Helping
With Russia’s
invasion entering its fourth month, sustaining the fight will require not only
more weapons but also that billionaire Elon Musk keep facilitating access to
high-speed broadband internet, Ukraine’s information minister said.
The SpaceX founder
has provided over 12,000 Starlink dishes to Ukraine so far, Mykhailo Fedorov,
the minister for digital transformation, said in an interview on Monday on the
sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Those terminals are proving
crucial in supporting infrastructure across Ukraine as it wages its own
information war on social media against Russia.
Ukraine is
getting the help from Musk free of charge, according to Fedorov, who added
there may be a different arrangement between Musk and the US Agency for
International Development and European entities which provided most of the
Starlinks to Ukraine. He didn’t elaborate.
“All critical
infrastructure uses Starlink, all structures that are needed for the state’s
functioning use them,” Fedorov said. “We need to receive them constantly
because they are one of the elements of the foundation of our fight and
resilience.”
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| StarLink dishes arriving in Ukaraine. |