SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service is looking to officially launch in Yemen, a country in the Middle East embroiled in a decade-long, ongoing civil war. The Starlink deal there is in its final stages, according to an unnamed senior Yemeni government official, Bloomberg reports.Yemen’s Starlink licensing deal could take another month to complete, according to the report, but it’s unclear when exactly the country would gain official access to Starlink’s services. Yemen’s current internet access is ranked among the slowest in the world, according to Ookla SpeedTest data, beating only East Timor and Cuba in terms of median mobile internet download speed. Its average broadband speed is very slow as well, with a median download speed of 7.39 Mbps. It’s also a country where internet content is censored. The Houthi rebel group in Yemen has been accused of dismantling and disrupting telecommunications infrastructure in the country and the adjacent Red Sea. Cut sea cables disrupted 25% of all internet traffic in the broader region back in March (Houthi groups have denied claims that they were responsible). Starlink’s satellites themselves would be substantially harder for any group to dismantle, but it would be possible for a group to swipe or destroy the physical Starlink dishes or routers, however. British human rights group Article 19 and numerous other nonprofits have dubbed the ongoing internet and telecom infrastructure attacks in Yemen part of an ongoing “cyber war” in the country. SpaceX has launched over 6,300 Starlink satellites into space. Roughly 5,900 are still in orbit, but Starlink isn’t legally available to everyone. That hasn’t stopped groups from getting access through black-market means, though. Countries and military groups without official licensing agreements, like paramilitary groups in Sudan and Russian forces invading Ukraine, have been able to get ahold of Starlink dishes from unauthorized third-party sellers and register their accounts through proxies. A Yemeni government official previously told Bloomberg that Starlink is already being widely used in the country despite not yet being licensed to operate there. Few countries in the Middle East officially have Starlink access at time of writing, meaning a Yemen deal would be among the first for Starlink in the region. Israel and Gaza reportedly got Starlink approval earlier this year, along with Jordan. Turkey, Oman, and Qatar are expected to get official Starlink access this year, according to Starlink’s data. Nearby countries like Georgia have access, and other countries like Pakistan are still awaiting regulatory approval. Turkmenistan is also expected to gain Starlink access this year.
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Editor’s Note: Ookla SpeedTest is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.
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