Internet Services Disrupted In Iran's Capital For Unknown Reason

Internet services on mobile phones and landlines were disrupted Friday morning in the Iranian capital Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj.

According to reports on social meida, many websites are not available via all internet service providers (ISPs) of the country. Most news websites are not even available from abroad.

Unconfirmed reports in social media say the reason is a fire at the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company.

Some social media users who are not living in Tehran or Karaj also say their internet is down.

The public relations manager of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Mehdi Salem, told IRNA that the disruption was caused by a problem in one of the data centers (LCT) in Tehran. He did not say what the nature of the problem was.

He added the problem was resolved after about an hour, but despite this statement service remained largely unavailable.

On Thursday, a report by the Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA said the internet penetration rate has surpassed 122 percent in the country.

The government blocks thousands of websites and top social media apps in abid to control the flow of information.

Iranians were outraged last week when a group of 18 hardliners in a parliament committee claimed that they had ratified a bill to further restrict internet and social media access.

Some people reacted to the disruption by blaming the authorities, saying the outage was a trial run for the plan to restrict internet and social media, which hardliners are pushing for.