A stringent communication blackout, silence from authorities on its crackdown and killings due to it kept the Islamic Republic of Iran almost cut off from the world. Only scarce information and few visuals from the anti-government protests in Iran leaked out through anonymous sources, a loose network activists, developers and engineers – most of whom depended on thousands of Starlink satellite internet systems that they reportedly had quietly smuggled into the country.
Days of unrest against the theocratic Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei-led regime, multiple threats by US President Donald Trump of intervention and thousands of deaths later, the pace of protests in Iran seems to have gone down – an observation that relies on the decrease in videos and images of protests making their way out of the country where protests starting spreading from late December 2025, escalating to a point where they triggered international tensions and fears of military confrontation between Washington and Tehran.
A discretely smuggled hidden network of Starlink satellite internet systems, owned by subsidiary of billionaire Elon Musk-led American aerospace company SpaceX, helped a section of people in Iran spread images of troops firing into the streets and families searching for their loved ones amid the piles of bodies that reports said were of protesters.
A New York Times report detailed how the ragtag network breached the communication blackout in Iran.
‘Starlink is a lifeline’: The hidden network
Starlink, operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, delivers internet access directly from satellites to ground terminals, bypassing land-based censorship systems. That capability has given the service an outsized role in Iran’s protests, allowing protesters to organise and communicate beyond the country’s borders.
Communication clampdowns are not uncommon in Iran. When necessary, officials in Iran have selectively cut internet access in specific regions while maintaining essential online services, according to internet monitors. The system is imperfect, and many Iranians have relied on virtual private networks, or VPNs, and other tools to reach Instagram and other global platforms.
But on January 8, when reports of mass protests intensifying emerged, Iranian officials shut down the internet entirely, plunging the nation of 90 million into a digital blackout. VPNs failed. Internet traffic in Iran fell by 99 percent, according to the monitoring group Netblocks.
The government “panicked,” the NYT report quoted as saying Amir Rashidi, a cybersecurity expert with Miaan, a digital rights organisation focused on Iran.
Activists who had anticipated a communications clampdown moved quickly. After authorities cut internet access during violent protests in 2022, activists and civil society groups devised plans to smuggle Starlink systems into the country from neighboring states.
The State Department worked with SpaceX to secure the sanctions exemption for digital communication tools in Iran. According to a Biden administration official involved in the effort, it also aided civil society groups with guidance on concealing the systems from government detection.
“Activating Starlink,” Musk posted online that year about Iran.
Ahmad Ahmadian, an exiled activist who was also involved in smuggling the satellite internet systems into Iran, said, “This is the most severe internet shutdown that we have experienced.”
“Starlink is a lifeline.”
Ahmadian, now the executive director of the Los Angeles-based rights group Holistic Resilience, said he helped others bring some of the first Starlink terminals across the border. “We turned it on, and it just worked like a charm,” he said.
How Starlink units were sold
Pumped by that success, Ahmadian said he went on to help establish a smuggling network. Through Telegram channels and other online platforms, merchants sold Starlink units and coordinated delivery routes via the United Arab Emirates, Iraqi Kurdistan, Armenia and Afghanistan.
Before the most recent protests, smuggling a Starlink terminal into Iran cost between $700 and $800, Ahmadian said. A black market developed among people seeking access to Instagram, YouTube and other restricted platforms, largely catering to wealthier Iranians.
The approximately 50,000 Starlink terminals now inside Iran are concealed on rooftops and other discreet locations, the report mentioned. Developers have created tools that allow a single Starlink connection to be shared, effectively turning one terminal into an access point for users farther away.
Iranian authorities were aware of Starlink’s expanding footprint but took few steps to curb its use until recently, said Doug Madory, an internet infrastructure expert with the network analysis firm Kentik.
Researchers said the latest electronic jamming campaigns against Starlink succeeded in some areas, but the sheer number and dispersion of terminals has made a comprehensive blockade impossible. An Israeli intelligence official cited in the report said the Iranian government appeared to concentrate on disrupting Starlink access in neighborhoods near major universities, aiming to push students offline.
“You need to plan to have that infrastructure in place,” Fereidoon Bashar, the executive director of ASL19, a digital rights group focused on Iran, was quoted. “This is because of years of planning and work among different groups,” he said.
The secret networks of Starlinks – and the Iranian government’s aggressive response against them – not just shows how national digital blackouts are becoming harder for authorities to enforce, it also is a display of Musk’s geopolitical clout.
Governments have long used internet disruptions to suppress dissent in countries like Myanmar and Uganda. But the spread of tools like satellite internet have complicated the shutdowns and created a cat-and-mouse hunt against new technologies.