After nearly three months of digital darkness, Iranian authorities have partially flipped the internet switch back on - though don't get too excited, because mobile data is still very much in the off position.
According to France 24, home broadband connections began resuming in some areas of Iran on Tuesday, marking the end of an 88-day nationwide internet shutdown that was imposed during the country's war with Israel and the United States. It is, by any measure, one of the longest nationally-imposed internet blackouts in recent history.
Half an internet is better than none (barely)
The restoration comes with a significant asterisk. While some Iranians can now plug their routers back in and browse from their couches, mobile internet access remains largely blocked. For a country where, like most of the world, people do the majority of their online activity through smartphones, this is a pretty critical gap.
Adding another layer of digital absurdity: many Iranians are still reportedly relying on VPNs to reach international websites and social media platforms, meaning the government's idea of "restored internet" and most people's idea of "restored internet" are having a very different conversation right now.
88 days without memes - a humanitarian crisis, arguably
To put this in perspective, an 88-day internet blackout is not a minor inconvenience. It disrupts banking, communication, journalism, business, education, and essentially every corner of modern life. Iran has a history of throttling and blocking internet access during periods of unrest, but a shutdown of this duration - tied directly to an active military conflict - is an extraordinary escalation of information control.
The blackout was enforced alongside the war with Israel and the United States, with authorities citing security concerns as justification. Critics and digital rights organizations have long argued that internet shutdowns are used primarily to suppress dissent and control the flow of information during crises, rather than for genuine security purposes.
What comes next
It remains unclear when or whether full internet access - including mobile data and unfiltered access to international platforms - will be restored. For now, millions of Iranians are living in a strange in-between state: technically connected, but still partially cut off from the global web.
If the government's track record is any guide, "partial restoration" may be the new normal for quite some time. The VPN industry, at least, is probably doing fine.
