Iran Partially Restores Internet After 88-Day Outage

On Tuesday, the NetBlocks Network Monitoring Observatory announced a partial return of Internet service in Iran after an 88-day interruption, equivalent to 2,093 hours of almost complete isolation from the digital world. The specialist observatory described the outage as “the longest comprehensive national internet block in modern history,” stressing that transmission monitoring indicates a partial resumption of digital communications in the Islamic Republic. For his part, the deputy of Iranian President Mohammad Reza Aref said on the "X" platform that "the first step towards free and orderly access to cyberspace has been taken," pledging to meet the demands of Iranian citizens in this regard. A 22-year-old Iranian woman from Kermanshah in the west of the country told AFP that she was able to access international websites through the service provider, but she still needs virtual networks to access social media platforms However, the Iranian judiciary announced the suspension of the work of the "Special Authority for the Regulation and Administration of Cyberspace" formed by President Bezhekian and ordered the restoration of the service, amid controversy over the competent authority in this file. Experts warned against overestimating this partial return, noting that Iran still has a long way to go to return to the data traffic levels recorded before January 8.