Iran’s internet blackout hits a record 45 days as 90m people are shunted onto a domestic network

A long, slow shutdown

It has been reported that Iran’s internet blackout has entered a record 45th day, according to NetBlocks and coverage in the Financial Times. The country’s roughly 90 million residents are now being routed primarily through the National Information Network — a domestic, state-controlled web that cuts off much of the global internet. Short of a dramatic pivot, millions of Iranians are living inside a digital walled garden.

Life inside the network

What does that feel like? For many it’s a jarring narrowing of options: international news feeds, social platforms, encrypted services and cross-border commerce become intermittent or unavailable. Businesses that relied on external cloud services and supply chains are scrambling. Activists and journalists warn that the domestic network makes surveillance and content control easier; authorities, meanwhile, have framed restrictions as wartime security measures, it has been reported.

Bigger picture: splinternets on the rise

This isn’t just a local story. The move fits a global trend toward “splinternets” — national internets built to consolidate control over information flows. Tech companies and rights groups will watch closely: prolonged fragmentation complicates everything from cross-border tech investment to digital rights enforcement. For ordinary people in Iran, however, the key question is immediate and human: how long can daily life and dissent endure in an internet that no longer connects them to the wider world?

Sources: ft.com