More than 80 days into the longest internet shutdown in Iran's history, the government has introduced a tiered system that grants select professional groups limited access to the global internet - for a fee. The program, called "Internet Pro," does not represent a technical improvement but rather a paid exemption from the near-total blockade imposed after the United States and Israel launched attacks on the country on February 28. For the vast majority of Iranians, the blackout continues.
A Shutdown Without Precedent - and a Selective Workaround
Iran has used internet shutdowns as a tool of political control for years. The most recent prior instance came during nationwide protests in January, which the government suppressed with force. But the current blackout exceeds all previous ones in duration, scope, and economic consequence. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost. Industrial production has collapsed. And the informal digital economy - which many Iranian households depended upon - has been severed entirely.
Into this vacuum, the National Security Council approved "Internet Pro," a scheme that grants qualifying users an initial package of 50 gigabytes of data for approximately $11. That sum, modest by Western standards, is substantial in a country where inflation has exceeded 50 percent and the value of the rial has sharply deteriorated since the war began. Access is tied to a national ID number and a registered mobile phone, meaning every user is individually identifiable to authorities.
Even within this framework, access is constrained. Daily limits apply to foreign websites and international data traffic. And according to Solmaz Eikder, a journalist and internet researcher at Filterwatch - an Iranian digital rights organization that documents censorship and digital repression - major platforms including Instagram, X, and YouTube remain inaccessible to many "Internet Pro" users without a VPN. Those platforms have been blocked in Iran for years, long before the current shutdown.
Who Gets Access - and Who Does Not
The government has framed "Internet Pro" as an economic measure. Spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani described it as a way to "prevent disruptions to economic activity and ensure business communication in times of crisis." The eligible groups reflect that framing: members of the Chamber of Commerce, startups, technology companies, and retailers are included.
Women who were primary breadwinners through informal online trade are not. Students are not. The millions of people who sold goods - dried fruit, handmade clothing, home-prepared food - through social commerce platforms are not. Eikder notes that this kind of income was often central to household budgets in smaller towns and villages, and that the shutdown has eliminated it entirely. "Internet Pro" offers no path back for them.
A 19-year-old engineering student, speaking anonymously, told DW she was uncertain whether she would accept access even if it were offered to her. The identification requirements made her wary. She continues to purchase VPN access on the black market. Many of her peers, she said, can no longer afford to do the same.
Access to Information as a Class Privilege
The broader implication of "Internet Pro" is one that critics within Iran have been direct about. The newspaper Shargh and other domestic media outlets have argued that the program converts access to information and communication from a civil right into a commodity available only to those with the right professional credentials and the financial means to pay for it.
Oliver Linow, an internet freedom specialist at DW - which has itself been blocked in Iran since 2009 - put the informational stakes plainly: it has become extremely difficult for people in Iran to access independent news and reliable information. DW has provided censorship circumvention tools to users in the country for years, but such tools, Linow noted, are often no longer effective during a near-total shutdown of the kind currently in place.
The pattern is not unfamiliar in authoritarian digital governance. When information flows are restricted, the capacity to control which information reaches which population becomes a form of political power. A paid, identity-verified, government-administered internet exemption is not simply an economic policy - it is a surveillance architecture dressed as a service.
Uncertain Governance, Unclear Timeline
President Masoud Pezeshkian has said internet service will be restored soon. No date has been given. Behind the scenes, the institutional picture is complicated. Multiple agencies - including the National Security Council and the Supreme Council for Cyberspace - hold overlapping jurisdiction over internet policy. A new crisis management body, led by Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, has reportedly been formed to resolve this fragmentation. But according to the newspaper Sharq, government officials have been explicitly prohibited from publicly discussing the new body's mandate or responsibilities.
What this means in practice is that the people most affected by the shutdown - ordinary citizens, informal workers, students, journalists - have no reliable information about when, or whether, normal connectivity will return. In the meantime, access to the internet in Iran has become a product. And like most products, it is available only to those who can afford it.
