The near-total internet blackout in Iran has "now entered its 57th day after 1344 hours," internet watchdog NetBlocks has said.
The restrictions followed renewed anti-government protests in early January and intensified after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran at the end of February, and during which time leaders in Washington and Israel have signaled they seek total societal collapse and government overthrow in the Islamic Republic. This has left many of Iran's some 95 million citizens scrambling for information on what comes next concerning war and negotiations.
"Exactly eight weeks have passed since 28 February when Iran was placed under a regime-imposed internet blackout," NetBlocks continues.
The heavily restricted internet has disrupted jobs and businesses nationwide, and has seen some citizens temporarily cross borders or else flee the country entirely just to access better communications.
This is particularly at the porous border with Turkey, for people able to get in and out, according to one report based on an on the ground interview:
Dazed by the sun and tired by more than a dozen hours of travel by bus, the woman from Tehran, Iran's capital, crossed into eastern Turkey.
Her first stop? Somewhere with Wi-Fi.
"I only want to make a video call and go back [to Iran.] That is it," she told NPR.
For the last month, she has been making the hours-long drive to Iran's border with Turkey every three days in order to use the internet for a few hours to contact her son, who is studying at a university in western Turkey.
The US state-funded publication NPR continues:
"The only voice is the voice of the Iranian regime now, because they have cut the internet. They have shot our voices and cut our tongues," a second Iranian woman told NPR, while traveling in eastern Turkey.
Some can afford to buy precious minutes of Wi-Fi or phone time from a black market of Starlink bandwidth and phone SIM cards, but many Iranians say the connections are glitchy, unable to load most web pages and social media sites.
And so, for Iranians with the means to travel, there is one other option for internet: to travel to another country.
A whole 'internet access black market' has arisen based on finding loopholes and workarounds.
We previously featured an investigative story which said Telegram remains one of the most widely used apps in Iran. People use it for news, communication and everyday life. Now, it has also become a place where VPN sellers advertise their services. Access to the internet has become expensive, unreliable and uncertain. But it's a familiar pattern. In recent years, cutting internet access has become a common response by authorities during times of crisis - whether protests or external conflict.