Iranian internet users to be cut off from World Wide Web

01/03/12

Source: Radio Zamaneh

A member of Iran's Corporate Computer Systems reports that Iran will be cut off from the World Wide Web once the country launches its own national internet network.

Iranian media report that Payam Karbasi, the spokesman for Corporate Computer Systems of Iran, said: "With the launch of the national internet, the internet providers can increase the speed of access to their desired websites by two megabytes... however, it will be just like a corporate network, which cannot be accessed by outsiders, and some material cannot be accessed through that network."

Islamic Republic authorities have long been talking about separating Iranian internet users from the World Wide Web by launching a "clean" national internet network. The government has said that the national internet will be launched by next month.

The national internet network will allow service providers to decide which sites the users can access and which sites will be provided at the lowest speed.

In the past two weeks, Iranian internet users have reported an extreme reduction in internet speed. While access to government sites remains easy, using proxies to access blocked sites reduces the speed of access.

Iranian authorities heavily censor the internet and block numerous news and opposition websites. Iranian users have used proxies to overcome these obstacles.

Karbasi said: "Imagine there is a monitoring system that checks all the internet packages and then allows it to pass through or regards it unclean. Because of the high volume of internet packages, they remain in a line-up in order to be checked, and this causes the reduction in the speed of access."

With the launch of the so-called "clean" internet network, Iranian authorities aim to separate Iran from the World Wide Web in order to block access to "immoral" content and maintain control of what Iranian users can access.

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