Author Archives: Amir Rashidi

In June, authorities set their sights on sabotaging internationally provided circumvention tools while starting  to introduce their own government sanctioned VPNs and internet censorship measures for children. In this context, Iranians experienced less intense, more sporadic, and shorter internet disruptions than they did in May. Circumvention Tools Disruptions Starting in mid-June, the Filterwatch team observedContinue reading “Network Monitor: Iran Attacks Circumvention Tools, Encryption and Hijacked DNS in Favor of Children’s Internet”

Iranians went almost the entire month of May without reliable internet access. For at least 26 days, nationwide throttling and periods of near-total internet (mobile data) shutdowns impacted users in localities across the country.  Disruptions began on May 6 in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, major disruptions occurred nationwide as well. Shutdowns and throttling coincidedContinue reading “Network Monitor: From Internet Shutdowns To A Pilot Version of a Legal VPN”

During the month of April, Iranians experienced large-scale and prolonged internet disruptions that were considerably more intense than in previous months.  The bulk of internet disruptions impacted Tehran, Ardabil, and Fars provinces. Users in Ardebil and Fars provinces often faced prolonged outages lasting several days as the graphs below demonstrate. Tehran users also experienced multiple outagesContinue reading “Network Monitor: Iranians Experienced Large-scale And Prolonged Internet Disruptions”

Based on publicly available data, March was a relatively stable month in terms of network disruptions. However, three incidents took place that affected internet connectivity for some users in Iran and are worth noting.  A fire started in the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company According to Hamid Fattahi, CEO of the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC) and DeputyContinue reading “Network Monitor: A Couple Of Major Yet Short-lived Disruptions”

According to IODA and other open data network measurement tools, February was a quiet month compared to January. This may be in part due to the fact that as Iran continues to work towards developing its National Information Network (NIN), many of these network measurement  tools are no longer able to identify network problems. TheContinue reading “Network Monitor – February 2022”

In January, a number of disruptions by the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC) caused various provinces across Iran to go offline for short periods. Meanwhile, an alleged hacking incident on Iran’s state TV was followed by an internet outage on the internet provider dedicated to the state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). It’sContinue reading “Network Monitor – January 2022”

As Filterwatch reported in previous months (see reports for November 2021, and September 2021), access to Instagram continues to be disrupted in Iran. The issue is particularly noticeable at early hours after midnight, usually between 1am to 6am local time. Yet Iranian officials have not yet provided a formal explanation for the disruptions to theContinue reading “Network Monitor – December 2021”

Overall Situation   Multiple protests took place in the central province of Isfahan during November. These protests – participated in by a significant number of farmers and agricultural workers – have been taking place on and around the dried-out areas of the riverbed of the Zayanderud River. The demonstrations have been staged to voice angerContinue reading “Network Monitor – November 2021”

In our September report we observed an increasing number of disruptions to international traffic, particularly as we neared October. These distributions continued throughout October, to the extent that at times it was not possible to use international services in Iran. These disruptions were largely associated with decreased Internet speeds and bandwidth; in other words, theyContinue reading “Network Monitor – October 2021”