In Yemen, Starlink internet brings opportunities – for some | Technology News

Mukalla, Yemen At the Mukalla Creative Hub, a man in a black t-shirt leans over a desk to help a colleague with his work, while other men remain motionless at their laptops. The women next door sit in ergonomic office chairs, typing or scrolling on their phones. On the other side of the space in the Yemeni coastal city of Mukalla, there’s a sleek cafe counter at the entrance, where plush armchairs are neatly arranged and a few people work between rows of computers.

What attracts businesses, remote freelancers, and students here is not just the good looks or the uninterrupted electricity, but something more important: fast, reliable Starlink satellite internet.

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“Four Starlink devices take up space, deliver speeds of 100 to 150 Mbps and allow users to stay connected at all times,” Hamzah Bakhdar, a digital freelancer who also works at the site, told Al Jazeera.

In a country where war has severely damaged telephones. payment is broken and cutting across remote areas, Starlink is helping to create a small but growing digital community of designers, developers, educators, and freelancers who can now work for foreign clients and earn more money than Yemen’s failing economy would allow.

Internet access in Yemen has also been disrupted, with underground cables sometimes cut, leaving parts of the country suddenly blacked out. The Houthi rebelswho are based in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and have been fighting the internationally recognized government since 2014, controlling the country’s largest Internet companies. This allows them to block websites they see as being linked to their opponents both inside and outside the country, including major platforms used by techies and remote workers.

The arrival of Starlink satellite internet has provided another option, allowing people to bypass the Houthis’ control over telecommunications and stay online even when they are far away.

Mohammed Helmi, a video editor and motion picture producer, was looking after projects for three clients in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Thanks to the high-speed Internet at the cafe, he no longer worries about losing connection or missing deadlines, problems he said repeatedly interfered with his work in the past.

“Before, when I downloaded files on my laptop, it stopped when my data ran out,” Helmi, a young man with a thin moustache, told Al Jazeera at a cafe. “I had to buy another gigabyte and start downloading again. Because of this, I often had to refuse work.”

Online management

Starlink is operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, and provides internet by connecting a ground dish with low-level satellites operated by the company.

While other satellite internet companies exist, and others are quickly entering, Starlink is the only limited internet service available legally in Yemen after the world-renowned government signed an agreement with the company in September 2024.

But not everyone.

The equipment costs 500 dollars, a price that many Yemenis cannot afford, who live in one of the poorest countries in the world, where more than 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Having a family is still a distant dream for many Yemenis who want to access the Internet.

University students, such as Mariam, a student at Hadramout University, say that even buying internet vouchers from local service providers who also sell Starlink access is not possible – let alone buying a device for yourself.

“People are using vouchers because they cannot afford Starlink equipment, the prices of which are very high,” Mariam, who preferred to be known by her first name, told Al Jazeera.

The Houthis have also reacted aggressively to the arrival of Starlink, launching a campaign to warn people against using the service and threatening to take action against anyone with the device.

He has accused the company of acting as a “US espionage expert” and said it “poses a serious threat to national security”. Experts are concerned that data collected on the Starlink network could be used “gathering intelligence and using resources“.

There is also concern around the world over the number of internet services and infrastructure in Starlink’s hands, especially given the ownership of Musk, a South African-born billionaire who has aligned himself with right-wing causes in the United States and Europe.

Connecting remote areas of Yemen

But despite Houthi threats and the high cost of weapons by Yemeni standards, Starlink has spread across the country, reaching previously remote areas.

Omer Banabelah, a mobile software developer, said that before Starlink arrived, a trip to his village in the village of Hadramout meant the end of the world. He was unable to make phone calls, or even connect to the Internet, which left him worried that customers would move on when their messages went unanswered. Since Starlink is now available in rural areas of the province, Banabelah said he no longer fears losing his job every time he travels.

“I can respond to their messages anytime, anywhere,” he told Al Jazeera. “A job that takes 10 minutes with Starlink can take all day without it.”

Similarly, Yemeni teachers, who have been struggling with poor and delayed salaries for years, have also benefited from the spread of internet services, which have allowed them to offer uninterrupted online classes and earn the extra income they need.

Raja al-Dubae, the head of a school in Taiz, told Al Jazeera that his school started to provide online education using Yemeni education for Yemeni students living abroad in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China in 2023. He started with only 50 students, with teachers communicating via the Internet.

But when Internet traffic surges in a crowded city every afternoon, those connections can drop, forcing teachers to abandon mid-term courses.

“Teachers are often disconnected from their students, and by the time the internet is down, the next class has already started, leaving them frustrated and unable to complete their studies,” he said.

Al-Dubae said he turned down his nephew’s offer to buy Starlink due to high future costs, but now regrets the delay. Since the start of the project, the number of students has increased by more than 200, the budget has increased, and the teachers have started receiving additional salaries.

“With Starlink, the internet is faster and reaches every corner of the school,” he said. “Teachers never stop interacting with their students. I never thought it would change like this. Videos load quickly, we don’t turn away new subscribers anymore, and our fast internet reputation has spread.”

For Yemenis who are used to Starlink’s high-speed Internet, and the better income and business opportunities that have helped create it, the biggest challenge is returning to the slow, unreliable local network.

“Return to the head of the local network? Emotional damage. We hope that the project will continue to improve,” said al-Dubae, mocking the idea of ​​returning to Internet vendors.

Helmi did the same. “If Starlink was cut, I would be disappointed and forced to go back to the local market, which can’t cover my expenses or fees,” he said, shifting in his seat with a smile. “I have to work three or four jobs to match what I get from one outsourcing project.”