• Steve LeVine covers foreign affairs for Business Week. He previously was correspondent for Central Asia and the Caucasus for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for 11 years. His first book, The Oil and the Glory, a history of the former Soviet Union through the lens of oil, was published in October 2007. Putin’s Labyrinth, his new book, profiles Russia through the lives and deaths of six Russians. The updated paperback was released in April 2009.



    To Install the O&G Newsfeed on Your Site, Click "Get Widget" Below

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner



    A Blog on Russia, Energy, the Caspian and
    Beyond

    Friday, June 26, 2009

    Satellite-Streaming Into Iran

    Over at Mother Jones, David Corn posed the question the other day on whether the U.S. could frustrate Tehran's Internet jamming by beaming broad-band service into the country by satellite. He reported that the question was asked of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who did not know the answer.

    O&G's own Sasha Meyer answered this question in a post last month. There does not appear to be a currently available, off-the-shelf technology. But Meyer describes a satellite system being put in orbit by Google-backed o3b whose target is to beam high-speed Internet service from space starting the end of next year. Alcatel-Lucent is developing a similar system with SkyTerra.

    Meyer suggested such systems as a way to bring tamper-free Internet to Central Asia. It's not fail-safe. As Charles Recknagel over at RFE-RL suggests, the Iranians and Central Asians can jam the signal; they also could simply prevent possibly necessary base stations from being installed. But it is technologically possible.

    Labels: , , , , ,

    posted by Steve at 0 Comments Links to this post