Internet Resumes in Iran After 3-Month Blackout

After more than 2,000 hours of government-enforced connectivity blackouts, signs emerged Tuesday that Iran’s internet is slowly returning, albeit at minimal levels. The country’s population of over 90 million has experienced nearly uninterrupted internet shutdowns throughout 2026, beginning with the current blackout on February 28, triggered by attacks from Israel and the United States, and a previous outage following widespread protests in January. The reconnection appears to have been ordered by Iranian officials, but its permanence remains uncertain.

While some Iranian networks began reconnecting to the global internet on Tuesday, researchers warned that access levels remain far below even the partial restoration Tehran permitted at the end of January and throughout February. The current connectivity is drastically lower than Iran’s typical baseline from December 2025. Internet monitoring experts from Kentik, NetBlocks, and Cloudflare observed the partial restoration starting in the early afternoon local time on Tuesday.

“We do see some traffic coming from Iran,” says Amir Rashidi, a cybersecurity expert at the internet freedom organization Miaan Group. “Some providers have come back online, but it is still too early to say exactly what will happen. After the January protests, some providers were also reconnected, but around 50 percent of the country’s traffic remained down.”

Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, notes that mobile networks have seen little change. Instead, he points to fixed-line providers showing signs of restoration, with the Telecommunication Company of Iran’s fiber-optic service around Tehran recording the “biggest gain.”

In early January, the Iranian regime completely cut internet connectivity while state forces killed thousands of protesters demanding economic improvements. The government then shut down connectivity again at the end of February, when the United States and Israel went to war in Iran. This left millions unable to contact families, damaged the local economy, and blocked news and video footage about the war from entering or leaving the country. The limited reconnection on Tuesday comes as the U. S. government continues negotiations with Iran for a permanent end to the conflict.

Over the past decade, the Iranian regime has pursued a massive project to control connectivity and censor content, while developing a national intranet intended to replace the global internet. This includes homegrown, surveillance-heavy technologies such as search engines, messaging apps, and ride-hailing platforms. In practice, however, the regime’s digital control mechanisms often function as blunt instruments rather than precise tools. It remains unclear whether this is due to technical limitations, political instability, or both.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council reportedly ordered the current internet shutdown at the end of February as the war with the U. S. began. A different group formed by current Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, known as the Special Headquarters for Organizing and Governing the Country’s Cyberspace, reportedly ordered connectivity restoration on Monday. This move drew a legal challenge in Iran’s High Court. Nevertheless, the Iranian communications minister stated that the reconnection would proceed per the president’s order, with the restoration process expected to be completed within 24 hours.

“What we are seeing now is an increase in traffic from Iran, but we need to wait and see the outcome of the power struggle,” Rashidi says. “Challenging the president’s order in court, given Iran’s political culture, was in a way a humiliation of Pezeshkian. So we should wait and see how this power struggle plays out.”