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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?
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