Nearly a hundred Starlink network internet terminals are active in Iran, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said on Monday.
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The American billionaire had promised in September to deploy the Starlink satellite network in Iran at a time when the Iranian authorities are increasingly restricting access to the internet.
“Soon 100 active Starlinks in Iran,” Musk tweeted on Monday.
Starlink has a network of over 2,000 small satellites in low orbit above the earth that help provide internet access. Terrestrial terminals are then connected to routers which make it possible to generate wifi and therefore internet access.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, SpaceX has delivered thousands of terminals there, thus ensuring an internet connection. Some 25,000 terminals have thus been deployed in the country to date.
Demonstrations have shaken Iran since the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, following her arrest in Tehran by this police. Since then, hundreds of people have been killed, thousands arrested and two 23-year-old men have been hanged.
Iranian authorities have since restricted access to Instagram and WhatsApp — until this fall the only social networks still available — and to VPNs, which Iranians use to access banned sites.
