CAIRO .— Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday, after authorities ended a blockade that lasted several months. However, users reported that the service was slow and intermittent in some areas, and that applications such as YouTube and Instagram were heavily restricted, as they were before the outage began during nationwide protests in January.
Authorities justified the blackout as an urgent military measure following the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran on February 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators seemed to be close to reaching a more permanent truce. However, many Iranians feared that access could be interrupted again at any moment.
The internet monitoring company Netblocks stated that Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is around 86% of its pre-cut capacity. The internet analysis firm Kentik indicated that internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good indicator of usage, is around 40%.
Amir Rashidi, Iranian cybersecurity analyst, stated that widespread disruptions still persisted. “It’s too early to say the blockage is over,” he wrote on X.
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An Unprecedented Closure
The approximately 90 million inhabitants of Iran were cut off from the internet for most of 2026, in one of the longest and strictest national blockades in the world. Young people with online jobs saw their income disappear. The loss of jobs and the closure of online businesses exacerbated the high economic costs of the war.
The cut hindered communication between Iranian families during months of unrest and war. At times, telephone lines were also cut, although they were later restored.
A woman residing in Tehran recounted that for months she could barely communicate with her children living abroad. She couldn’t believe that the authorities had restored communication, as she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the interruption.
