Early this year, using T-Mobile’s network, SpaceX successfully sent and received text messages using new Starlink direct-to-cell satellites that deliver broadband connectivity to smartphones anywhere in the world, bypassing traditional infrastructure.
While some will consider this an innocuous development, it’s a monumental moment for communication technology and geopolitics alike. In effect, it means the satellite phone, once the exclusive domain of government officials, diplomats, journalists and fictional secret agents, may soon be much more widely available, worldwide. The implications are considerable.
First, this raises fundamental questions about data sovereignty and legacy systems. The new satellite systems that may soon supplant today’s cell towers and fiber optic cables are likely to be controlled by large transnational corporate actors, such as SpaceX. This means the state’s role in building the infrastructure, controlling the content it conveys and governing the data flowing through it will be marginalized.
Second, this development will empower corporate actors to play an increasingly important role in domestic and international affairs. Suppose domestic law enforcement gets a warrant to wiretap the calls of a drug dealer in their country. In a feasible view of the future, that nation may need to coordinate with Starlink instead of tapping into terrestrial data, raising issues surrounding private companies’ role in policing and military efforts.
In foreign and defense policy, the consequences could be even more dire. In 2022, it is alleged that Elon Musk arranged for his Starlink satellite communications network to be shut off near the Crimean coast in an effort to undermine a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, based on the premise that the Ukraine was “going too far.” But no one voted for Mr. Musk and therefore that really shouldn’t be his call to make. However, as commercial satellite broadband and…
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