Iran Maintains Tiered Internet Access for Businesses and Academics Three Months After Protests and Cyberattacks

Iran's internet blackout, now more than two months old as of May 10, is the longest on record. The shutdown began Jan. 8 amid anti-government protests and has inflicted widespread economic pain. 8 billion over the past two months, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.

That figure tallies with an estimate from Iran’s Chamber of Commerce. Businesses complained of harm from restricted internet access during nationwide protests in January. In response, the Internet Pro program was launched in February and its sale began that month through the Mobile Communications Company of Iran.

MCI is owned by a consortium with close ties to the IRGC. The Supreme National Security Council approved Internet Pro in February. Internet Pro emphasizes connection stability and less restricted access to international sites.

Users must pass a verification process and have a business, academic or scientific role to access it. The program works through telecom-level whitelisting tied to white SIM cards. Users with white SIMs retain access to the full global internet.

8 million toman. Each additional gigabyte costs roughly 40,000 toman. Ordinary internet costs 8,000 toman per gigabyte.

The price of black-market VPN apps has skyrocketed. "Imagine dealing with unemployment and crazy inflation, and somehow managing to scrape together 500,000 or a million tomans (about $13), only to spend it on a couple of gigabytes of VPN just so you can get on X or other platforms, check the news, and have a voice," Faraz, a 38-year-old resident of Tehran, told CNN.

The average monthly wage in Iran is between 20 million and 35 million tomans, or $240 to $420.

"And then, in the middle of all this stress and frustration, when you finally manage to open X or Telegram, you see people with unrestricted access acting like everything is normal, it honestly feels like a punch to the gut," Faraz added. " Restrictions were partially eased in February before being tightened again after the US and Israel struck Iran on February 28.

President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office said last month that the restrictions on people’s access to the global internet were unfair and that government agencies had failed to set out a rationale for such a system.

Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi said high-quality access to the internet was every Iranian’s right. " Mohammad Amin Aghamiri runs the authority governing control of cyberspace. Aghamiri was sanctioned by the United States and United Kingdom in 2023 over human rights abuses linked to the crackdown on protests in Iran.

Iran’s 300,000-strong nurses’ union rejected the use of Internet Pro. Various lawyers’ groups also rejected the program. " An unidentified official quoted by Fars news agency claimed the reason for the temporary restrictions is to prevent the recurrence of destructive cyberattacks on the country’s critical infrastructure.

The head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said it was unacceptable that unqualified individuals or profiteers exploit this platform for financial abuse and called on prosecutors to deal with discriminatory and corrupt access. A number of Starlink satellite receivers have been smuggled into Iran.

Owning a Starlink device is illegal in Iran and can carry severe consequences including arrest and accusations tied to national security.

Cnn reported that the tiered system has laid bare divisions within the regime even as it seeks to project unity against external pressure.