Myanmar’s sweeping internet blackouts drive rebels, medics, scammers to satellite service

 

FILE – Starlink satellite antennas are seen at the Internationale Funkausstellung, the international trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, Aug. 31, 2023, in Berlin, Germany. Across Myanmar, rebel commanders and aid workers are turning to Starlink satellites.

Bangkok, Thailand —

Across war-torn Myanmar, rebel commanders, aid workers and cyber-scammers alike are turning to billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to stay in touch with each other and with the outside world amid some of the most severe internet restrictions.

Starlink is not licensed in Myanmar, and the military junta running much of the country has banned its use, yet orbiting satellites and smugglers on the ground still manage to meet some of the growing demand.

For many, “Starlink is now the only viable solution for instant internet,” an analyst for the Myanmar Internet Project, a local research and advocacy group, told VOA on condition that his name not be used for fear of retaliation from the junta.

The group has counted more than 300 internet shutdowns across the country since the military seized power from an elected government in a 2021 coup that set off a grinding civil war with no end in sight. It says nearly a quarter of Myanmar’s 330 townships are now completely cut off.

In its latest Freedom on the Net survey, rights group Freedom House gave Myanmar its worst score among the 72 countries it ranked for obstacles to internet access.

That has left people across large swaths of Myanmar scrambling for alternative channels to get online, and for a growing number of them that means Starlink.

FILE – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload of Starlink satellites for a high-speed low earth orbit internet constellation, lifts off from launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 17, 2022.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX aerospace firm, Starlink operates over 6,000 satellites providing internet access from low Earth orbit, by far the most of any satellite-based internet provider.

Though the company does not officially serve Myanmar, “spillover” bandwidth from satellites serving other countries allows Myanmar to tap in, the Myanmar Internet Project analyst said. The junta is meanwhile losing control over growing swathes of the country, making its ban on the service increasingly moot. With the help of smugglers and a porous border, Starlink units have been trickling in from neighboring Thailand.

The Myanmar Internet Project estimates there are now well over 3,000 Starlink dishes up and running across the country.

“In some areas the regular phone calls even cannot be made, so … Starlink is the only viable option,” the analyst said. “And for people on the ground, information is now life or death. You cannot know if the air strikes are coming to you, you cannot show the people what is happening and what you are facing in Myanmar if you don’t have internet.”

The Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian aid group that works mostly along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, was among the first to start using Starlink in the country. The group’s director, David Eubank, told VOA it now uses over 30 of the units and has donated about 20 more to local hospitals, clinics and schools.

“Starlink has enabled us to have a signal where we’ve never had one before, and in the areas of blackout [it has been] very effective,” Eubank said.

“It’s not just us,” he added. “There’s clinics and hospitals and other humanitarian groups that rely on Starlink. It’s absolutely crucial, a life-saving and life-giving way to share information of all kinds — a way to give early warning, a way to get help in, and a way to tell a story, a way to communicate among loved ones, a way to escape. It’s the main thing.”

Eubank recalled a case in Kayah state from June of a landmine victim whose wounds were beyond the skills of the Free Burma Rangers medic at the scene.

“So, using the Starlink we contacted our surgeon friend in Germany, who’d been working with us before, and showed photos and videos and worked back and forth through the Starlink, and the surgeon guided this … medic to make the procedures necessary to save what was left of the leg and save this young man’s life.”

The satellite service has also become “incredibly useful” to the many armed groups fighting the junta where there never was internet service or where mobile towers have been disabled or knocked out, Richard Horsey, senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, told VOA.

“Reliable internet access is very important for command and control of forces, for operational planning — for example, Google Maps and other providers of satellite imagery — and other purposes such as early warning of airstrikes,” he told said.

Among the rebel groups making use of Starlink is the Karenni National Defense Force, a coalition of armed groups fighting the junta across Kayah.

KNDF spokesman The Eh Soe told VOA that soldiers on the front lines still rely mostly on radio, partly due to the high power demands and the costs of Starlink units. While still the cheapest satellite option available, a base model that officially retails for $599 is now going for up to eight times that on Myanmar’s black market.

Behind the front lines, though, The Eh Soe said some KNDF commanders are using Starlink to plan and coordinate, and to stay in touch with the outside world. Many of the country’s resistance groups rely on friends and family abroad to help fund their operations.

The Eh Soe said the system is also being used to help run the opposition government being set up across the state to replace the junta by the Karenni Interim Executive Council, which includes KNDF commanders.

“Starlink is the only way you can use the internet … right now,” he said, “and it is quite important to be connected.”

Along with the rebels and humanitarians, some criminals are catching on as well.

In a report on Southeast Asia’s cybercrime threat last month, the United States Institute of Peace, a U.S. government-funded think tank, said signals intelligence has shown compounds in Myanmar from which transnational crime syndicates are defrauding victims across the globe “pivoting to Starlink satellite systems.”

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says it has found tens of online vendors in the region selling third-party Starlink units explicitly for cyber-fraud operations.

While the satellite service is still the exception for internet access among the region’s cyber-scammers, it does appear to be gaining a following and will likely continue to, said Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC’s deputy representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

“Like other technologies, it is definitely becoming a more important tool for criminals to expand this business and shield their operations from external pressure,” he told VOA.

He said that in turn may raise calls for Starlink to cut Myanmar off or spur neighboring countries to get tougher on smugglers. Authorities in Thailand have seized dozens of Starlink units on their way to Myanmar and made several arrests so far this year. The Myanmar Internet Project analyst says the growing demand may also overwhelm the available bandwidth at some point, slowing service to a crawl.

SpaceX did not reply to VOA’s requests for comment.

 

By：VOA