By Victor V. Motti*
For decades, the Internet in the Middle East has been less independent than it appears. Governments do not need to control every website or every message; they only need to control the physical gateways through which most citizens connect to the global network. Cut the fiber, disable mobile data, pressure telecommunications operators, or shut down international links—and an entire population can suddenly disappear from the digital world.
Iran enabled by China has demonstrated the power of this model with particular severity. During the January 2026 crackdown, the government imposed one of the most extensive Internet shutdowns ever recorded, cutting tens of millions of people off from global connectivity. The significance was not merely censorship. It was the ability of the state to manipulate the country's connection to the outside world itself. Iran's development of a more isolated domestic network, combined with increasingly sophisticated shutdown capabilities, points toward what might be called digital territorialization: the transformation of the Internet from a global commons into something that can be switched on and off at national borders.
But a technological countertrend is emerging above those borders.
Satellite broadband changes the geometry of Internet control because the last mile no longer necessarily runs through a national telecommunications network. A user can potentially connect directly to infrastructure in orbit rather than to a terrestrial gateway controlled by the state. The strategic importance of this shift is already becoming visible in the Persian Gulf. In August 2026, the UAE's Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority announced that Starlink had received a license to provide satellite Internet services in the country.
The deeper transformation will come with the maturation of Direct-to-Cell technologies. If ordinary smartphones can eventually communicate directly with satellites without specialized terminals, the traditional architecture of Internet censorship begins to break down. The government may still control towers, fiber-optic cables and domestic Internet exchanges—but controlling those infrastructures will no longer necessarily mean controlling connectivity itself.
This creates a new strategic paradox. The Middle Eastern state that once possessed an Internet "kill switch" may increasingly discover that the switch controls only one layer of the network. Terrestrial Internet can be shut down; satellite connectivity can remain above it. Domestic networks can be isolated; citizens can potentially reach networks beyond national jurisdiction. Information sovereignty, once secured through control of physical infrastructure, becomes progressively harder to enforce.
This does not mean censorship disappears. States can regulate satellite terminals, criminalize their use, jam signals, surveil users and pressure satellite operators. Iran has already reportedly attempted to interfere with satellite connectivity and to locate Starlink terminals. The contest therefore moves upward—from controlling cables and towers to controlling the radio spectrum, devices, orbital infrastructure and the companies that operate them.
That is the strategic significance of the satellite Internet revolution. It is not simply about faster connectivity in remote areas. It potentially changes the balance of power between the territorial state and the planetary network.
For authoritarian governments, the future may therefore be less about shutting down the Internet than about trying to prevent people from escaping one Internet into another.
Victor V. Motti is the author of Thus Spoke Arta: How Our Planet Is Entering a New Era (2026), The Loom (2025), Playbook of Foresight: Designing Strategic Conversations for Transformation and Resilience (2025), Planetary foresight and Ethics: A Vision for Humanity’s Futures (2025), A Transformation Journey to Creative and Alternative Planetary Futures (2019).
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