Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
28APR

Iran internet blackout enters 60th day

3 min read
09:13UTC

Netblocks logged Iranian connectivity at 1 to 4 per cent of normal across the 60-day national blackout, the longest sustained restriction in its tracker. The 2019 Iran shutdown lasted five days.

← Back to Iran writes Phase 1; Washington still has no penJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Sixty days of blackout has converted from an emergency tool into governance and into a future bargaining chip.

Iran's nationwide internet shutdown entered its 60th consecutive day on Tuesday 28 April, an estimated 1,440 cumulative hours of restricted national connectivity. NetBlocks, the London-based internet observatory that operates the most-cited cross-country tracker of state-imposed shutdowns, has logged Iranian connectivity at 1 to 4 per cent of normal across the period 1. The 2019 Iranian shutdown, the previous benchmark, lasted five days; the current run is twelvefold longer and has overtaken every state-imposed restriction the tracker has documented since launch in 2016.

The operational distinction matters. A five-day blackout is an emergency control tool, deployed during acute protest unrest and lifted before economic dependencies fail. A sixty-day blackout is something else: the Iranian government has discovered that domestic banking, logistics, healthcare scheduling and food distribution can function on the internal national-information-network the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting authority and the Ministry of Communications built in stages from 2016 onwards, without restoring access to the global internet. Restoration has stopped being a domestic-political imperative and has become a discretionary tool the state can offer or withhold in negotiation.

The civilian population has been informationally isolated through every Pakistani mediation round, every diplomatic capital Abbas Araghchi has visited and every wartime address the executive has delivered. Iranians cannot read in real time the three-phase ceasefire text their own foreign minister handed Pakistan , watch the Boris Yeltsin Library photographs of their president's envoy meeting Putin, or verify the casualty figures Hengaw publishes from Yazd and Ghezel Hesar . The diaspora and human rights monitors maintain the documentary record on the population's behalf; the population has no independent reading of the terms being negotiated in its name.

The blackout's persistence at sixty days is also a confidence-building measure available for the next round. Restoration is the cheapest concession Tehran can offer, costs nothing to deliver and has measurable verification: NetBlocks reads will rise, civilian commerce will resume, the diaspora will see the change. If a Hormuz-first text reaches signed form, restoration becomes a separately negotiable line item that does not require either side to move on the nuclear file.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iranians have been cut off from the internet for two months. They cannot see what their own government is offering Washington, watch their foreign minister meet Russia's president, or read human rights reports about executions happening at home. The government can say anything it likes about the negotiations domestically because the population has no way to check. This is twelve times longer than any previous national internet shutdown on record.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Iran's connectivity infrastructure runs through three state-controlled backbone providers , Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC), Irancell and MCI , all of which are legally required to comply with orders from the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.

The council is chaired by the President but its decisions require Supreme Leader approval. The shutdown's continuation through Pezeshkian's presidency therefore reflects a command-level decision above the reformist civilian government, consistent with the IRGC political structure that has sidelined Araghchi on operational matters.

At 1,440 hours, the shutdown has also covered every Hengaw documentation cycle for wartime executions. Domestic media cannot publish Fakhrabadi's execution; the only record reaching international audiences is via Hengaw's diaspora network. The blackout is serving a dual function: suppressing political opposition and controlling the execution documentation flow.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Internet restoration now constitutes a measurable confidence-building concession Iran could offer in any Hormuz-first deal at near-zero operational cost, providing a low-friction diplomatic chip with domestic-legitimacy value.

  • Risk

    Sixty days of information isolation means the Iranian population has no context for any deal terms presented domestically; the government could announce favourable deal terms that contradict the written text held by Pakistan without domestic challenge.

Sources:PBS NewsHour·PBS NewsHour·White House
Mentions:Iran →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Russia →Pakistan →Tehran →Washington →Abbas Araghchi →Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library →Iranian Navy →Ministry of Communications →Qezel Hesar Prison →Yazd →NetBlocks →Hengaw →
First Reported In

Update #82 · Iran writes Phase 1; Washington still has no pen

PBS NewsHour· 28 Apr 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
This Event
Iran internet blackout enters 60th day
A government negotiating on its citizens' behalf with no domestic feedback loop can claim any deal terms it wants without contradiction. Sustained blackout has converted from an emergency tool into governance.
Led to
SNSC restores 'Internet Pro' on Day 60
Internet Pro scheme approved on 28 April is the first concession on the 60-day blackout logged at 1,416 hours in ID:2857.
Occurred 28 Apr 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Hizballah
Hizballah
Has not commented on the US Treasury's 20 August designation of ten people, including named couriers, over a cash network Treasury says moved money to it from the IRGC-Qods Force. ACLED recorded a sharp rise in attacks around it the same day.
Kuwait
Kuwait
Kuwait's Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Khaled al-Shriaan, co-chaired the 16th US-Kuwait Joint Military Commission at the Pentagon on 21 August. Kuwait has not published what was agreed; only a summary of the meeting's existence and attendees is sourced.
Qatar
Qatar
Has not commented publicly on the $4.5bn KC-46A tanker Foreign Military Sale notification the State Department approved on 20 August. The notification opens a sale process; Doha has not confirmed whether it will proceed to a signed transfer.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Told a Baghdad business meeting on 20 August that Iran will not endure a hungry population regardless of its military strength, against 87.9% point-to-point inflation and 128.1% food inflation for Tir. His fellow Majlis Economic Committee member Samsami separately warned a petrol price rise would ignite unrest.
US Navy
US Navy
Signed a $22.9bn, seven-year contract with Raytheon on 17 August to raise Tomahawk output from about 60 a year to more than 1,000. The Acting Navy Secretary, quoted via an X post, framed it as the "Arsenal of Freedom" initiative; it replaces the 850 missiles fired by 1 April in about ten months at the new rate.
UK Maritime Trade Operations
UK Maritime Trade Operations
UKMTO logged six armed men boarding a tanker 136 nautical miles east of Al Mukalla on 20 August and redirecting it toward Somalia. A vessel steered toward the Somali coast reads as an attempted seizure, a distinct hazard from the stand-off strikes the same lane has seen before.