cell towers do not really factor into this. they will just shut down local peering center and transit for major providers and they are done. far less moving elements to take care off than cell towers, which would not even address the whole problem (“problem” from the government’s point of view)
Comment on Iran’s internet blackout left people in the dark. How does a country shut down the internet?
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 day ago
It’s a good article for people who got so used to the internet permeating everything that they never considered the underlying infrastructure. But it’s there, and it can be controled - not just in Iran; though certainly countries like Iran and Russia put more effort into isolating it than others. But it will never be 100% - and I don’t mean VPNs, just other physical/technical means of accessing & distributing the internet and/or other forms of ditributed messaging. As a layman’s guess I’d say cell towers might factor into this.
14th_cylon@lemm.ee 1 day ago
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 1 day ago
You misunderestood; I guessed that cell towers could be helpful in circumventing such shutdowns.
14th_cylon@lemm.ee 1 day ago
oh, then i did misunderstood, but i still don’t see what you are suggesting. maybe if you get assigned address you can have some limited p2p communication with nearby people, but if that is the case, a guy with a megapfone does similar job.
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Aren’t most cell tower functions just backhauled to the Internet these days, anyway?
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 18 hours ago
I was wondering the same actually (I did label the cell tower thing a guess):
Wouldn’t hard shutting down the internet shut down mobile communications as well. Of course a soft shutdown would allow for filtering that out. I wonder which one Iran chose.
Still guessing btw.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 17 hours ago
Yes, a cell phone tower is basically a Wi-Fi router for a bunch of people because it has a connection to the internet via a fiber cable and then broadcasts that out over local airway spectrum. The exact same thing as your Wi-Fi does except for longer range and higher power and higher locations.