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Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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It's a good article for people who got so used to the internet permeating everything that they never considered the underlying infrastructure. But it's there, and it can be controled - not just in Iran; though certainly countries like Iran and Russia put more effort into isolating it than others. But it will never be 100% - circumvention will always be possible - and I don't mean VPNs, just other physical/technical means of accessing & distributing the internet and/or other forms of ditributed messaging. As a layman's guess I'd say cell towers might factor into this.
Aren’t most cell tower functions just backhauled to the Internet these days, anyway?
I was wondering the same actually:
Wouldn't hard shutting down the internet shut down mobile communications as well. Of course a soft shutdown would allow for filtering that out. I wonder which one Iran chose.
Yes, a cell phone tower is basically a Wi-Fi router for a bunch of people because it has a connection to the internet via a fiber cable and then broadcasts that out over local airway spectrum. The exact same thing as your Wi-Fi does except for longer range and higher power and higher locations.
it is far easier to just shut down local peering center and transit for major providers. far less moving elements to take care of than cell towers, which would not even address the whole problem ("problem" from the government's point of view)
You misunderestood; I guessed that cell towers could be helpful in circumventing such shutdowns. I edited my previous comment to make that a little clearer.
oh, then i did misunderstood, but i still don't see what you are suggesting. maybe if you get assigned address you can have some limited p2p communication with nearby people, but if that is the case, a guy with a megaphone does similar job.
Internet via sattelite is now a thing
indeed it is. it is not very relevant to our discussion though. it is not a "cell tower" and it needs rather expensive end user hardware. limit of proliferation of such hardware among population during some kind of government internet shutdown will be approaching to zero.
also, as any kind of radio communication, it can be locally jammed, which further reduces its usability in a crisis.
Not our. It's a discussion you are trying to have with me about something I labeled as a layman's guess.
i talk, and you talk. it is our discussion.
i am not trying to have, i am having it. here you are, replying to me. why are you trying so hard to prove that a discussion is not a discussion? it does not make sense.
yeah. and since i am more knowledgeable than you in this particular regard, i contributed some information you might not have had. now you do and your future layman's guess can be more educated. that is how the discussion works. and for some strange reason, you seem to be pissed about it.