Even if phones could be used as relays, or directly link to satellites, the government could always make the technology illegal on its territory. Right now, co

Even if phones could be used as relays, or directly link to satellites, the government could always make the technology illegal on its territory. Right now, couldn't a rogue Iranian ASN already allows internet access for a few selected people? (Who knows, maybe they even have undeclared optical fibers which go beyond frontiers) Some protesters may have a privileged access, but they don't talk about it to keep it up. Decentralization or not, a government can always ban a technology or a subset of it