NEW YORK, January 14. /TASS/. US entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has waived the Starlink subscription fee in Iran amid protests, Bloomberg reported.

A person familiar with Starlink’s operations confirmed the free service, while asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public, the news agency noted.

According to the NetBlocks Internet monitoring service, Iran has been without Internet access for over 96 hours. On January 9, the Iranian Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies said that it was taking measures to bring the country back online.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on January 12 that the government had blocked access to the Internet during protests due to foreign-orchestrated terrorist operations.

On December 29, 2025, merchants began protesting in Tehran over a sharp decline in the value of the Iranian rial. On December 30, university students joined the unrest, which engulfed the majority of major cities. The authorities also announced the death of 38 law enforcement officers. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, terrorists started infiltrating protesters’ ranks on January 8. Tehran labelled the rioters as terrorists and placed responsibility for the unrest on Israel and the United States. US President Donald Trump said earlier that Washington was considering using force against Iran.