About 800 SpaceX Starlink terminals have entered Iran since the service was activated in the country back in September — reports Iran International.
Mehdi Mohebi, head of the Tehran Telecom Traders Union, told the publication that the number came from an unnamed “official.” The news comes a little over a week after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the company was “approaching 100 Starlinks active in Iran.”
Starlink is a high-speed internet service powered by a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. A Starlink terminal on the ground connects to and communicates with orbiting satellites to provide fast, reliable internet access in even the most remote locations.
SpaceX activated Starlink in Iran after the government started cutting off access to the internet (and social media in particular) to curb nationwide protests that broke out over the country’s oppressive laws and the suspicious September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by Iran’s “morality police.”
While the government cut off internet and social media access in Tehran and other population centers to make it harder for protestors to organize, the strategy inadvertently hurt e-commerce and business applications in the process.
Several Starlink connections had already gone online in Iran by October, with Starlink kits being smuggled into the country. Since the Iranian government sees Starlink terminals as illegal, it is likely that all of the devices that have entered Iran so far were smuggled across the borders.
