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On October 4, 2026, the Iranian regime’s Foreign Ministry summoned Norway’s ambassador over an unusual dispute. The complaint was not about sanctions, oil or nuclear inspections. It was about internet traffic coming from space.
Tehran demanded that Norway, whose administration handles relevant Starlink satellite filings at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), help terminate unauthorized Starlink connections inside Iran. The following day, the confrontation escalated further: Mohammad Amin Aghamiri, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, claimed that authorities had successfully disabled Starlink terminals during the January 2026 protests and warned that satellite-internet infrastructure could become a “legitimate military target” if used as an instrument of war.
Whether Tehran actually achieved the comprehensive shutdown Aghamiri claimed remains unverified. What is clear is that Starlink has moved from being a censorship nuisance to a major security problem for the state.
Tens of Thousands of Terminals—and a Growing Supply Chain
Nobody outside SpaceX knows the precise number operating in Iran. But independent estimates now converge around at least 50,000 terminals. An earlier estimate from Tehran’s E-Commerce Association put the number of Starlink users at roughly 100,000 as early as December 2024. One terminal can serve multiple people, making terminal counts and user counts fundamentally different.
The authorities’ own figures reveal the scale of the underground market.
The regime’s Economic Security Police said in August that it had seized 997 Starlink devices and arrested 163 people in just four months, while confiscating 15 vehicles used to transport equipment. Police said devices were arriving through Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan in the west and through Qatar, the UAE and Oman by southern maritime routes.
"If the regime's model of #Internet censorship succeeds, it will not remain confined to Iran. It will become a blueprint for authoritarian survival in the twenty-first century and beyond," @MasumehBolurchi writes.https://t.co/MUPWa702g9
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 7, 2026
That logistical battle may become harder. Iraq formally licensed Starlink in July, while the UAE granted the company a ten-year satellite-service license in August. Two markets on Iran’s immediate periphery can now legally import equipment that remains contraband across the Iranian border.
Iran Has Moved from Filtering to Electronic Warfare
The January blackout demonstrated that satellite internet is not censorship-proof.
Technical telemetry obtained from a Starlink terminal inside Iran showed that it detected corrupted GPS signals and activated its inhibitGps protection. The connection survived but suffered roughly 20 percent sustained packet loss. Other observers reported degradation reaching 30 to 80 percent in heavily jammed areas.
This matters technically.
Iran cannot block Starlink with DNS poisoning, deep-packet inspection or orders to domestic telecom operators because the user’s first network hop is directly to a low-Earth-orbit satellite. Instead, authorities have been forced into the much harder realm of radio-frequency warfare: interfering with positioning signals, attempting to overwhelm satellite links, physically locating dishes and seizing hardware.
Report Shows 94% of #Iranian Youth Defy Regime's #Internet Iron Curtainhttps://t.co/jZrFLyM8bz
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 9, 2025
Aghamiri’s new claim that Iran possesses additional systems capable of identifying or disrupting terminals suggests that this electronic contest is now an explicit state program. His assertion that every terminal was disabled in January should be treated cautiously: Reuters found Starlink connections still functioning in parts of Iran during the blackout.
Even the ITU record exposes Tehran’s remaining problem. Iran has repeatedly told the Radio Regulations Board that it cannot identify and locate all unauthorized terminals across the country.
The state can jam an area. Finding tens of thousands of small, movable terminals is another problem entirely.
An Internet Dish Can Now Become a National-Security Case
Tehran is compensating for its technical limitations with criminal law.
The regime’s 2025 espionage legislation specifically criminalized possession, purchase, sale and import of unlicensed satellite-internet equipment such as Starlink. Distribution carries heavier prison penalties, while conduct authorities characterize as espionage or action against the state can expose defendants to far more severe punishment, including the death penalty under specified circumstances. Amnesty International says security agencies have explicitly threatened Starlink users under the new espionage framework.
#Iran’s Two-Tier Censored Internet Is Getting More Expensivehttps://t.co/ilOwR6Evfe
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 2, 2025
The threat is no longer theoretical.
Rahim Shilani and Azad Rasoulifard, two men from Bukan, were sentenced in August to two years in prison each for “buying and selling Starlink satellite equipment.” Hengaw reported that both spent 52 days in security detention, without lawyers or family visits, and were subjected to physical and psychological torture.
Amnesty has documented an even more disturbing case. Hesam Alaeddin died in suspicious circumstances in detention after being arrested while trying to obtain information about his brother, who had himself been detained in connection with alleged possession of a Starlink device.
The Contest Is No Longer About Blocking Websites
Iran has spent billions building a communications architecture in which international connectivity passes through infrastructure the state can control. Starlink has not destroyed that system: most Iranians still depend on terrestrial networks, and satellite terminals remain expensive, detectable and vulnerable to jamming.
But Tehran’s behavior shows how much the equation has changed.
It is now hunting hardware from border crossings to city rooftops, conducting electronic warfare against civilian satellite links, imprisoning people who trade the equipment, lobbying the ITU, summoning foreign ambassadors—and discussing satellite infrastructure in military terms.
#Iran’s White-SIM Internet: How Tehran Hacks the Feed You Trusthttps://t.co/IUhKVR2wcg
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 26, 2025
That is a very different problem from filtering Telegram.
The question is no longer simply whether Iranians can reach the open internet. It is whether an authoritarian state should retain the practical ability to place an entire population behind an information wall at the precise moment when security forces move against it.
That question has consequences beyond Iran. Satellite connectivity is turning access to information during political crises into an issue of communications resilience, human-rights protection and technological policy. The governments that define the legal, regulatory and technical environment around these systems will help determine whether future internet blackouts remain an effective instrument of repression—or become an increasingly unreliable one.
For Iran, that distinction can be measured in something far more concrete than bandwidth: whether the next crackdown unfolds in darkness, or in view of the world.