--- eric.kuhnke@gmail.com wrote: From: Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> The vast majority of Iranian ISPs' international transit connectivity is through AS12880 DCI , which is a government run telecom authority. Google "AS12880 DCI Iran" for more info. DCI is also responsible for layer 2 transport and DWDM services for smaller downstream ISPs, on other international terrestrial fiber links, which are opaque to us NANOG list people from the perspective of global v4/v6 routing table/prefix announcement analysis. --------------------------------------------- Quoting a journalist, so.... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/21/irans-digital-shutdown-other-r... First quote out of order from the article: "Internet penetration and complexity has vastly grown in Iran over the past decade, but the country’s users still connect to the global network through just two gateways. Both are controlled by the regime, and can be blocked when it chooses." <There's the problem. My company alone has more than two...> "Access to the internet is gradually being restored in Iran after an unprecedented five-day shutdown that cut its population off from the rest of the world and suppressed news of the deadliest unrest since the country’s 1979 revolution." "The internet-freedom group Access Now recorded 75 internet outages in 2016, which more than doubled to 196 last year." "Iranians were cut off from the global internet, but internally, networks appeared to be functioning relatively normally." "the Iranian government has been working to develop the so-called “halal net”, a closed-off version of the internet similar to China’s “great firewall”. Iran has been pressuring businesses to shift their operations inside the country on to what it calls the National Information Network, which now boasts its own banking platforms, industrial services and messaging apps – ones that activists believe are closely surveilled by authorities." <RFC 1984> "The Trump sanctions have actually made it easier for Iran to seal its citizens off from the global internet ... Many Iranian tech firms have been left with no option but to use the Islamic Republic’s internal network and infrastructure instead." (reordered quote) "The last time Iran attempted to choke off access, during unrest in January 2018, it was forced to open connections again after just 30 minutes, Rashidi says. “It was a disaster,” he says. “Nothing was working: all the government offices, hospitals, financial services were gone ... they’ve discovered a lot of things do need access to the outside world” This time, it appears to have gone more smoothly: two sources able to monitor internet traffic inside Iran confirmed to the Guardian there was no significant disruption, indicating hospitals, financial software and even ride-sharing apps were still able to function, even as Iranians were unable to connect to websites such as Google." "Other authoritarian governments are pursuing a similar path. This month, Russia implemented a new law requiring ISPs to install equipment better able to identify the source of web traffic, as part of a strategy to one day be able to completely re-route the Russian internet through state-controlled data points." <RFC 1984> :) “Regimes around the world will be watching very closely both the public response and the response of the international community,” he says. “If it turns out this is feasible to implement, they will see there is no political cost.” scott