A Starlink trial on an Italian hilltop connected an ordinary smartphone to the Internet without mobile coverage, a satellite dish, or an external antenna. The demonstration quickly drew attention in Iran, where Internet access remains heavily filtered and authorities imposed a near-total blackout during the January protests. As Hannah Kaviani from RFE/RL’s Radio Farda program Negah-e-Farda (Iran Tomorrow) explains, for many Iranians the test raised a provocative possibility: getting online without relying on infrastructure the state can control or switch off.
