Elon Musk's Satelites

Elon Musk announced on X that Starlink will offer a month of free internet in Venezuela, "to celebrate the liberation from a brutal tyrant." In a country with fragile digital infrastructure and political control over networks, the gesture functions as a humanitarian intervention, not just a technological one.

Starlink operates through thousands of low-orbit satellites capable of providing internet directly to portable terminals, without dependence on submarine cables or local networks. According to the Internet Society and TeleGeography, approximately 95% of global traffic travels through submarine cables, a fast infrastructure but one that is extremely vulnerable to cuts, sabotage, or accidents. In contrast, LEO constellations remain functional even in the event of a total global cable collapse, making them a safety net for global communications, as noted in ITU reports.

This orbital architecture has maintained communications in Ukraine, Iran, and devastated areas, according to official statements from SpaceX and reports from Reuters, the BBC, and AP News, where local networks have failed or been blocked. Venezuela is now the latest example of how access to information can be maintained from space, regardless of the political climate.

Musk is not the only player in this orbital race. OneWeb (UK-India), Amazon Kuiper (US), Viasat and HughesNet (US) are developing their own networks, while China is preparing the Guowang constellation (confirmed by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), Russia the Sfera project (announced by Roscosmos), and the EU the IRIS² system (confirmed by the European Commission). They all pursue the same goal: digital autonomy and the ability to maintain communications even when the world on the ground falls silent.

In Venezuela, however, the decisive signal comes from Starlink. And in an age when cables can be cut, censored, or corrupted, the internet from orbit becomes not just technology, but a society's chance to stay connected to reality.