The ICT4D community continuously debates how to connect the unconnected. We’ve argued about spectrum allocation, community networks, and whether Starlink is extractive. Those are important conversations.
But while we debate, governments are getting better at weaponizing the off switch.
Access Now documented 296 internet shutdowns across 54 countries in 2024, a 35% increase in the number of countries affected compared to 2022. Conflict alone triggered 103 shutdowns in 11 countries. And 2025 made 2024 look modest.
Iran’s internet blackout, which started on January 8th, 2026 and continues today, has cut off over 90 million people. Human rights monitors have confirmed over 6,200 deaths during the blackout, with anonymous ministry of health sources reporting numbers far higher.
We now have the technology to make government internet shutdowns far less effective.
Direct-to-Cell (D2C) satellite technology connects ordinary smartphones directly to orbiting satellites, no special equipment, no smuggled hardware, no $650 Starlink terminal. And the ICT4D community should be leading the charge to ensure this technology serves crisis zones, not just profitable markets in stable democracies.
Internet Shutdown Crisis Is Accelerating
The development community has been slow to recognize that internet access is a protection issue, not just a development enabler. When a government cuts the internet, the consequences cascade.
- Hospitals cannot coordinate.
- Telemedicine stops.
- Humanitarian aid organizations go dark.
- Domestic violence victims lose helplines.
- Human rights documentation becomes impossible.
Digital sovereignty won’t save us from internet shutdowns. Iran built exactly the kind of National Information Network that digital sovereignty advocates promote, a domestic network that is faster, cheaper, and more reliable. It also gives the state a kill switch for global internet access while keeping government services running on local rails.
The technical architecture matters less than the political architecture. You can build entirely “sovereign” systems that enable horrific rights violations.
The pattern is global. Myanmar’s military junta imposed 85 internet shutdowns in 2024. India, the world’s largest democracy, recorded 84. Sudan, Ethiopia, Kashmir, Bangladesh, Palestine, the list keeps growing.
And in 2024, Access Now documented the first cases of authoritarian actors specifically targeting LEO satellite internet services in Myanmar, precisely because people were using them as alternatives when terrestrial networks went dark.
Direct-to-Cell Changes Internet Access
Current satellite internet via Starlink terminals has already proven it works during Iran’s blackout. The problem is access. Getting hardware into Iran requires smuggling, technical expertise, and enormous personal risk.
Iranian officials have publicly signaled that owners and distributors of Starlink equipment can be prosecuted, framing it as a national security offense. Only a fraction of terminals get through, and even those can be jammed, confiscated, or remotely disabled.
Direct to handset technology eliminates the hardware problem entirely. This solution connects standard smartphones directly to satellites. No terminal. No dish. No smuggling.
This is not theoretical.
- Starlink is piloting D2C with T-Mobile.
- Apple has already deployed satellite-to-phone connectivity on over 200 million iPhones.
- AST SpaceMobile has demonstrated voice, text, and data to unmodified phones.
- Amazon’s Project Kuiper is building global satellite infrastructure.
The technology exists. Multiple companies are making deployment decisions right now. Satellites are launching, spectrum is being allocated, and regulatory frameworks are being negotiated.
The ICT4D community should care about this for three reasons.
1. The deployment window is closing.
If humanitarian applications are not designed into D2C infrastructure now, while the technology and its governance model are being shaped, they will not be retrofitted later.
Infrastructure will optimize for commercial markets in stable countries. We will get D2C for Colorado hiking emergencies and not for Myanmar medical crises. Every ICT4D practitioner who has tried to retrofit inclusion into a system designed without it knows exactly how this ends.
2. The proof of concept already exists.
Starlink terminals function during Iran’s blackouts right now, proving satellite coverage reaches countries under authoritarian control.
D2C uses the same satellite infrastructure, just connecting directly to phones instead of terminals. The technical feasibility question is settled. What remains is a political and business model question about whether companies will serve crisis populations.
3. Scale is finally within reach.
A few thousand smuggled Starlink terminals reaching a fraction of Iran’s population is not a solution. D2C connecting millions of existing smartphones to satellite networks is.
For countries like Myanmar (55 million people), Sudan (46 million), Iran (90 million), the difference between terminal-based and phone-based satellite connectivity is the difference between a pilot and a platform.
Engage Now for Internet Access
I am not naive about the challenges.
- Satellite companies are businesses, and crisis zones are not profitable markets.
- Regulatory barriers are real, particularly around spectrum allocation in countries whose governments are actively shutting down communications.
- Geopolitics of a US-based company providing satellite internet into countries like Iran adds layers of complexity involving sanctions law and diplomatic friction.
But these are problems we know how to work on.
The development community has decades of experience creating sustainable business models for underserved markets, building regulatory frameworks, and coordinating multi-stakeholder interventions.
We are the community that understands what happens when technology is deployed without considering the needs of vulnerable populations. We know how to conduct user research in crisis contexts. We know how to build humanitarian use cases.
We should be at the table as D2C standards and governance models are being written, not showing up after the fact to critique what was built without us.
We Cannot Wait Again
A coalition of human rights organizations including Access Now, WITNESS, Article 19, the Strategic Litigation Project, and the Center for Human Rights in Iran is already campaigning for humanitarian D2C deployment.
They understand what many in the ICT4D community have been slow to grasp: connectivity during shutdowns is not a luxury. It is the difference between documented atrocities and invisible ones, between coordinated humanitarian response and organizational paralysis, between families finding each other and permanent separation.
Iran has proven both the need and the viability.
The gap between confirmed deaths and estimated deaths during an internet blackout shows what happens when documentation becomes impossible.
We need to help shape D2C as humanitarian infrastructure, or we will watch it become another technology optimized for wealthy markets while crisis populations are left in the dark.
