July 30, 2019

Russia denies its citizens access to future global internet

topic:	Humans
located:	Russia
editor:	Igor Serebryany

On Monday, Russia turned down an application by the British satellite company OneWeb to legally set up its office in the country. This was the second time since 2017 that Russian authorities rejected an application by OneWeb.

Moscow cites its intentions to build its own version of the global internet, titled 'Sphera'. But the Russian government fails to find investors willing to sacrifice 300 billion rubles ($4.8 bn) for the project, which is destined to work under the firm control of the Russian security agencies from the start. OneWeb plans to launch 900 satellites by 2027 to cover the globe with broadband internet. In contrast, Russia's Sphere envisages placing 650 satellites in orbit.

Whatever the formal reasons are behind Moscow's rejection of OneWeb's applications, the real explanation seems clear. The Russian authorities do not let foreign technology into the country, which they cannot control, says Russia's leading expert in the internet technologies, Urvan Parfentyev.

"In its core, the very concept of the global internet contradicts the Russian laws about the so-called ‘sovereign Runet’, adopted in recent years in the country. The global internet doesn't correspond with those laws as it renders them futile", Parfentyev says. 

The global internet cannot be controlled technologically by a national government. This is why authoritarian governments, be it Russia, Iran or North Korea, try not to let the genie out of the bottle in the first place. "To have a signal from a satellite one has to obtain a special receiver. If the government nods free circulation of those receivers, it'll be problematic to confiscate them if such a need occurs", Parfentyev predicts. This explains, why Putin's regime finds it easier to prohibit global internet technology as such, as well as to ban the import and use of the satellite routers. This is one of the actual reasons behind Moscow's stubborn denials of the OneWeb attempts, Parfentyev concludes. 

During the Cold War, the United States eyed a somewhat similar project of the satellite TV, which would grant the citizens of the Soviet bloc an opportunity to watch western television over the 'iron curtain'. The project had never been materialised because the Soviet bloc disintegrated even in the absence of the satellite television.