On October 4, Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Norway's ambassador and demanded help shutting down unauthorized Starlink connections inside Iran. Norway handles the relevant Starlink satellite filings at the International Telecommunication Union.

A day later, Mohammad Amin Aghamiri, secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, claimed authorities had disabled Starlink terminals during the January protests and said satellite internet infrastructure could become a "legitimate military target" if used as an instrument of war, ISNA reported. He also said Iran had additional systems to identify or disrupt terminals.

Starlink cannot be blocked the way Iran blocks websites. The first network hop goes straight to a satellite, so domestic filtering and orders to telecom companies have no effect. Instead, authorities have turned to jamming GPS signals, locating dishes and seizing hardware.

Iran's 2025 espionage law already criminalized possessing, buying, selling and importing unlicensed satellite equipment. Combined with military framing, this turns a rooftop dish into a potential national-security case. It also shows how much the leadership depends on its ability to cut Iranians off from the outside world when it moves against them.