Tehran, Iran – Iran’s economic outlook looks increasingly bleak more than three weeks after the start of what has become one of the most comprehensive and prolonged state-imposed internet blackouts in history, affecting a population of more than 90 million people.
Iranian authorities abruptly cut off all communications across the country on the night of January 8, at the height of nationwide protests that the United Nations and international human rights organizations say were suppressed by the use of deadly force.
Most of Iran’s internet bandwidth, local and international phone calls and SMS text messages have been restored in recent days. But most of the country cannot freely connect to the global Internet amid strong state filters.
Increased bandwidth allows many people to circumvent state restrictions using a variety of proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs), but the solutions are often expensive and temporary.
Last week, Information and Communications Technology Minister Sattar Hashemi told reporters that his ministry estimated that Iran’s economy suffered at least 50 trillion rials (about $33 million at the current exchange rate) in daily damage each day during the blackout.
But the minister acknowledged the true toll was likely much higher and said other ministers and economic officials had privately offered higher estimates that he did not elaborate on.
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government said the decision to completely block connectivity was taken beyond its control by the Supreme National Security Council.
Pezeshkian, who made curbing internet filtering a key campaign promise, refrained from talking about Iran’s biggest-ever internet outage, focusing instead on economic reforms and cash subsidies.
The administration has promised to provide online businesses with financial support, but the losses have already been sudden, sharp and too much for many to bear.
Simin Siami, a travel agent working in Tehran, told Al Jazeera that her company lost most of its income and had to lay off a number of employees.
“Most international flights were canceled and there was no way to buy tickets or compare existing flights,” she said, adding that her company was also unable to book hotels for customers who were initially unable to renew their passports.
“Unfortunately, this has limited our services to selling local flight tickets and local hotel bookings and has canceled all of our previous international tickets and bookings.”
Saeed Mirzaei, who works at an immigration agency in the capital, said 46 employees at his company were forced to go on mandatory leave for several weeks amid the shutdown.
He told Al Jazeera that they suddenly lost all contact with foreign counterparts, were unable to get updated information from embassies and missed deadlines to apply to universities on behalf of their clients who want to leave a heavily sanctioned Iran for better opportunities.
“We can’t do anything without the internet because our work deals directly with it,” Mirzaei said.
During the blackout, Iran’s theocratic establishment struggled to even support basic services using the so-called National Information Network, a limited nationalized intranet.
Connection to the intranet was slow and patchy, many companies remained disconnected from it, and those that were allowed to connect retained only a fraction of their customer base general economic stagnation throughout the country.
Hashemi, the communications minister, said a request from hardliners within the institution opt out of using the international internet in favor of a domestic bond was a “bitter joke” not feasible to apply.
He said his ministry estimated the country’s online businesses could survive the outage for about 20 days, signaling the state had no choice this week but to gradually restore internet bandwidth.
The economic damage figures released by officials only reflect visible costs and do not take into account hidden losses, according to Abazar Barari, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce.
“In the import and export sector, processes are highly dependent on the internet right from the initial stages – such as price negotiations, issuing pro forma invoices and other invoices – to coordinating with shipping companies and verifying documents. As a result, the internet shutdown has effectively disrupted foreign trade,” he told Al Jazeera.
“During this period, customer attrition also occurred, with damage particularly severe in certain food products as many countries are unwilling to link their food security to unstable supply conditions.”
In a tumultuous country with one of the world’s highest inflation rates, many Iranians who have tried to earn money online to stay afloat are now deeply anxious.
From small online business owners to teachers, chefs, crypto traders, gamers and streamers, people are taking to social media to ask others for extra support after this week’s gradual reconnection.
Mehrnaz, a young video editor from Tehran, said she only returned to work this week after her company put her on forced leave without pay from the start of protests in the city’s business district at the end of December.
“I was on the verge of having to move back to my parents’ house in another city. I’m only 25 years old and I’m close to zero for the second time this year. There might not be another time,” she said, noting that the first time was during 12 day war with Israel and the United States in June.
Iran’s National Post Company announced on Sunday that postal deliveries had dropped by 60 percent during the peak of the blackout, mainly hurting small and home-based businesses that depended on shipping their products.
But beyond livelihoods, many in Iran are also angered by the fact that the state can cut off communications on command, violating people’s right to use the internet.
“They had the audacity to create a tiered internet and decide what kind of use is ‘essential,'” said one woman who asked not to be identified for safety reasons.
“My kid wants to search about his favorite cartoons, my mom wants to read news on Telegram, and my dad wants to download books. I want to go online and write that they don’t have the right to do that.”
