Iran reinstates some internet access but restrictions remain for most

Tehran, Iran – Authorities in Iran have reinstated some internet access three months after taking the country offline at the start of the war with the United States and Israel, but restrictions remain in place for most people.

The Iranian government said last week that it had started a process to bring internet access back to a pre-war level, which was already very restricted as Iran was at the time still coming off an earlier 20-day shutdown imposed during deadly nationwide protests in January.

Last week’s move ended more than 2,000 hours of near-total internet shutdown in the country of 90 million people, the longest-ever nationwide blackout in the world.

But according to numerous user reports, local media accounts and expert analysis, Iranians’ free access to the global internet is far from restored.

Access to millions of web pages remains blocked by the state, and almost all global services and apps such as YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Waze are closed off and are not under consideration for reinstatement.

Mobile, wireless and landline connections are slow and patchy, to varying degrees, while many local applications and services regularly malfunction or fail to load.

Some Google services work, while others don’t. On Microsoft Windows, system Wi-Fi keeps restarting due to internet disruptions. Gamers, for their part, have to contend with what’s known as “high ping”, causing lags and glitches in gameplay.

Most people are forced into a black market for access to the internet, which has proven lucrative for those selling virtual private networks (VPNs) or other circumvention methods, often through affiliations with the state.