Iran begins restoring internet after 88-day nationwide blackout

Iran’s internet began creeping back online after an 88-day blackout that cut the country to about 4% of ordinary connectivity and left millions in near-total digital isolation. NetBlocks said the shutdown, which began on February 28 after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, was the longest nationwide internet blackout in modern history.

President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered international internet access reopened on May 25, and by May 26 NetBlocks reported a partial restoration that lifted connectivity to roughly 35% of typical levels. State media said fixed-line internet was being reconnected, but the scope of the reopening remained uneven, underscoring how tightly access still sits under government control.

The blackout had entered its 13th week and had surpassed 2,016 hours, according to NetBlocks. It disrupted ordinary life across Iran, from business activity and access to information to the basic ability to stay in touch with people outside the country. NetBlocks warned that the shutdown’s economic, social and mental-health toll was growing as the isolation dragged on.

The restoration also exposed a power struggle inside the Iranian state. Iran’s judiciary suspended a presidential body after it ordered internet restoration, even as Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said “the first step” toward free and regulated access had been taken and that Iranians’ demands “will be fulfilled.” The message was clear: connectivity was returning, but only on terms set from above.

The country had already lived through another nationwide shutdown earlier this year, when authorities imposed a separate blackout on January 8 during anti-government protests before access briefly returned. The repeated use of internet cuts has made the web one more front in Iran’s wartime and domestic control strategy, with ordinary users bearing the cost each time access is throttled, restored, or taken away again.