Iran’s internet score falls to 9 out of 100 as operators raise tariffs by 40 percent

Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2026, published on 22 October and summarised by IranWire, scored Iran at 9 out of 100, down four points from 13, placing it at the bottom of the surveyed nations alongside China and Myanmar. The report describes an 88-day severing of international connectivity during the war with the United States and Israel as the longest nationwide blackout it has recorded in the history of the series, with restrictions partially eased in early May 2026 and most citizens left with a limited selection of domestic sites. Freedom House separately documents a near-total blackout of roughly 20 days during the January 2026 protest crackdown, which it says left thousands dead and approximately 50,000 detained. IranWire’s summary dates the start of the US and Israeli strikes to March; other material dates it to late February, and the discrepancy is unresolved.

On Friday 23 October, the operators MCI and Irancell announced in separate statements increases of up to 40 percent in tariffs for calls, text messages and mobile internet packages, effective at midnight the same day, according to VOA. Two days earlier, the Iranian economic site Zoomon reported that unnamed “higher authorities” had issued a binding directive, conveyed by formal letter, requiring an immediate cut of international internet access should war resume. Zoomon did not publish the document, name the issuing institution, or give its date, scope or exemptions. The report was aggregated by NIAC Insights on 23 October. Alongside it, deputy communications minister Vahid Yazdanian, responsible for developing the National Information Network, said renewed war or unrest could bring another shutdown; current and former officials give differing accounts of who controls the decision.

Assessment: Take the Zoomon item as a report of an order, not an order: one outlet, one unseen letter, anonymous attribution. The more durable finding inside it is the official disagreement over who holds the switch — the Supreme National Security Council, the Communications Ministry, or the IRGC — because that is the question a document would settle and a leak would not. Cost and availability are separate levers and should not be conflated, but they point the same way: access narrowed by price on Friday, narrowed by decree in contingency planning on Wednesday. Watch whether the Majlis communications committee takes up either, and whether Yazdanian is asked on the record.