In brief
- Access to the global internet in Iran has hovered at roughly one 1 cent of pre-war levels.
- The slow intranet provides a few basic services and enables access to state-controlled news and messaging platforms.
Iran's government-enforced, almost complete internet shutdown is now the longest nationwide outage ever recorded in any country, according to a global monitoring group.
Access to the global internet has hovered at roughly 1 per cent of pre-war levels since shortly after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February, according to NetBlocks.
A separate 20-day internet blackout was also enforced in January, when thousands were killed amid nationwide protests, meaning that most Iranian civilians have now spent nearly two-thirds of 2026 in digital isolation.
"Iran is the first country to have had internet connectivity and then subsequently lost it by reverting to a national network," NetBlocks said on Sunday.
This slow, state-run intranet provides a few basic services and enables access to state-controlled news and messaging platforms.
'Cut off the voice of Iranians'
Iranian Australian Saeid Zand told SBS News the internet crackdown shows Iran's government is under pressure to quell uprisings by limiting people's ability to plan collective action.
"They want to cut off the voice of Iranians; no one hears from them, and they do what they like to the Iranians," he said.
"It's unfortunate because we don't hear from our families, with our friends, and we don't know what exactly is going on back home."
Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said in March that the government is only permitting those who can "get the voice out" to access the internet. That has included senior officials, state-linked figures and news agencies.
Although Myanmar, Sudan, Kashmir and Tigray have experienced longer intermittent outages, none have undergone a state-imposed shutdown of this magnitude for such an extended period, NetBlocks added.
No other conflicts, including those in Ukraine and Gaza, are known to "have sent an entire country offline" in the way Iran has, the monitor said.
No end in sight
During the January blackout, the government said many online businesses could not survive more than three weeks without connectivity, according to Reuters reports.
The struggling economy was losing tens of millions of dollars in direct damages each day, it said, in addition to the indirect and cumulative impacts of a nationwide shutdown.
The daily economic costs to Iran of this even longer shutdown could therefore be much higher.
Zand said that Iranians will adapt their lives during the shutdown, some going offline and others using Starlink, which provides satellite internet.
"But this is very risky because if the government and the regime find out that they have internet access specifically to the Starlink, it puts them at huge risk," he said.
While the crackdown continues, Iranians in Australia fear for their relatives' safety, he said.
"Shutting down the internet is an old move of Iran, and it could do it for who knows how much longer," he added.
The administration of Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, which had made restoring openness to Iran's internet environment a key campaign pledge less than two years ago, has yet to provide an official explanation for the shutdown.
Authorities have also not clarified how they expect what remains of the country's damaged digital sector and its globally isolated economy to withstand the months and years ahead, as the war continues.
The crackdown on telecommunications continues as US President Donald Trump ratchets up pressure on Iran, threatening in an expletive-laden Easter Sunday social media post to target Iran's power plants and bridges if the strategic Strait of Hormuz is not reopened.
In response to Trump's threats, Iran demanded an end to hostilities.
— With additional reporting by Reuters.
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