Iran restores mobile internet late Tuesday night, ending a nearly two-week shutdown that followed intense clashes. Limited wired networks had resumed earlier, but most citizens remained offline until now.
After nearly two weeks of an almost complete disconnection from the global internet, at 11:45 p.m. on Tuesday night (local time), mobile internet service was partially resumed in Iran—a further indication that the fighting which led to the shutdown has come to an end. Providers such as IranCell remained completely offline.
A newly published graph clearly shows that starting June 18, internet traffic in Iran—both in terms of data volume and the number of requests—plummeted almost to zero. A few days later, a limited number of wired networks (mostly government-operated) were brought back online. However, mobile internet—which serves the majority of the population—remained completely cut off.
During the blackout, access was initially restricted for everyone, and later for mobile networks, to Iran’s internal network (NIN), which allows browsing only local websites while blocking all global ones. This prevented citizens from accessing international information, social media, and essential services such as Gmail, WhatsApp, or YouTube.
Over the years, Iran has developed extensive shutdown and censorship capabilities, including full control over key internet infrastructure points. However, this time, the disconnection was among the most severe and prolonged in the country’s history.
