Overview
- President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the restoration of international connectivity in late May, ending an 88‑day state blackout that had severed most users from the global internet.
- Independent traffic monitors Kentik and NetBlocks report only marginal increases in usage and show national traffic remains far below levels seen before the shutdown.
- Many people face practical barriers to using the reopened network: mobile service is patchy, Google Play and other apps fail to load or update, and VPNs are often ineffective or expensive.
- Experts and officials estimate billions in losses from the outage, with NetBlocks putting direct damage at about $3.287 billion and Iran’s Chamber of Commerce estimating indirect losses of roughly $6.16–$7.04 billion.
- As users reconnect, delayed protest and war footage has gone viral while the continued use of a domestic “national internet” and legal moves by hardline bodies leave the durability and scope of the reopening uncertain.