Iran government spokesperson confirms internet slowdown in the country

Editor's note: this story was translated from the original VOA Persian article.

An Iranian government spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed a slowdown of internet connectivity in the country, saying "certain government agencies are occasionally compelled to reduce internet connectivity speed."

In recent weeks, users and various media outlets in Iran have repeatedly reported a noticeable slowdown in internet connections. VOA has also in the past reported some of the disruption.

At her weekly press conference Tuesday, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, said the decision to slow down connectivity is due to wartime conditions.

Iran cut off access to the global internet when the conflict with the United States and Israel started at the end of February.

This outage lasted 88 days and over 2,000 hours. NetBlocks, a global internet watchdog, said it was the longest recorded nationwide internet blackout in the world. During the outage, NetBlocks reported that Iran's connectivity had dropped to approximately one percent of its pre-war levels.

On May 26, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered Communications Minister Seyyed-Sattar Hashemi to restore Iranian citizens' access to the global internet. The Cyberspace Headquarters, chaired by First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, approved the order, which resulted in the restart of connectivity at speeds prior to anti-government protests.

The protests began well before the war did; in late December and January of 2025, during which the internet was not entirely shut off, but was severely slowed down and restricted. The total blackout began at the outset of the war in late February 2026.

Following the Iran’s May order to restore internet services, Deputy Minister of Communications Ehsan Chitsaz said, "Everyone will be connected to the global internet within the next 24 hours." Aref described the government's move as "the first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace.”

Iran’s Court of Administrative Justice halted the implementation of the mandate. Instead, it established the "Special Committee for Organizing and Managing Cyberspace" after hearing complaints seeking its annulment.

Hardline factions and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also opposed the order to restore internet access, citing "persistent security threats."

The restoration of access was incomplete, and users remarked that their connection experience fell far short of the government's promises.

The Iranian government has previously acknowledged that many online businesses could not survive for more than three weeks and that the national economy was suffering direct losses amounting to tens of millions of dollars daily in light of the blackout. Lifting internet restrictions had been a key campaign promise of the Pezeshkian administration.