[helloaltalt]

They must be smuggled inside the country and the dictatorship can say anything they want and charge if they get caught so they must be very few in numbers

I don't know too much about starlink but is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world?

Because how would people get starlink device. I dont know the mecanism of startlink though or how it works

[maxall4]

Starlink receivers are actually very complicated. They make use of a bunch of high-end FPGAs and a bunch of other expensive and uncommon components. See this teardown: https://youtu.be/h6MfM8EFkGg?si=m-sN6UW4nh8_HzPR.

[falaki]

Yes, there are NGOs and organizations that sponsor these and pay for them. Here is an example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2024/12/18/inside-...

[helloaltalt]

Forbes asking me to pay

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here's an web.archive.org link if anyone's interested which works

https://web.archive.org/web/20250301050041/https://www.forbe...

Edit: WTF forbes still gives me a popup even in archive, strange, but its less restrictive overall in the web archive version so I am able to still copy and read the version

[pantalaimon]

> is there a way that someone can pay for other person's usage and then build a starlink receiver or something from spare parts or like easy accesible parts from the world?

Starlink uses a pretty sophisticated phased array antenna, so not something you can easily build in your garage.

[torginus]

I wonder how easy is it to get contraband into the country. The country's huge, and with the current govt not being the most popular or financially well off, I guess there are quite a few border officers willing to make some extra money.

[BenjiWiebe]

Starlink receivers aren't built out of common readily available components. It's fancy RF stuff.