VAN PROVINCE — Iran's government invited tens of thousands of state-selected people and organizations to sign up for a limited, metered global internet service called Internet Pro, more than a month into a near-total internet blackout imposed after the start of the war. The service routes users through connections on which thousands of sites and most global messaging services are blocked, while some applications, app stores and Google services function.

Iran imposed the nationwide shutdown within hours of the first bombs falling in downtown Tehran on February 28, reducing internet connectivity to about 2 percent of pre-war levels at most. Nearly 90 million Iranians were left unable to access basic information during daily U.S. and Israeli strikes on the country, with only a few phone lines and select government-approved white SIM phone cards remaining functional. A limited intranet continued to operate, keeping some local services and apps alive, and the economy lost billions of dollars in revenue over more than 1,200 hours of digital blackout.

Internet Pro is sold in 50-gigabyte data packages by three top state-linked telecommunications companies. Applicants must provide full identification and professional or referral documents. Business owners and traders introduced to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology through their guilds and chambers of commerce were among the first to be connected this month, while doctors, university professors, researchers and academics were nominated by the Ministry of Science in recent days. Freelancers were told to sign up through a webpage set up by the state-linked Iranian ICT Guild.

The ISNA news agency described Internet Pro as an "expert option providing a stable connection for professional activities" and encouraged potential applicants to contact the three telecommunications companies to see if they were eligible. State authorities can also issue limited internet protocols for global connectivity to designated office spaces of approved companies.

Over the past 15 years, Iran has restructured its internet infrastructure to enable shutting off global access for most citizens. It created the National Information Network, an internal internet on which government-approved sites and the country's banking and financial services can operate even when global connectivity is cut off, and routes international traffic through a small number of state-controlled gateways. White SIM cards, which offer less restricted connections, are reserved for officials, state-linked entities, journalists and some civilian supporters of the establishment perceived to be helping get the message out on behalf of the government.

A small business owner said he traveled to Turkey for two days to check his WhatsApp messages and international news because of the outage. "Education has been stopped. All our communication has been stopped," he said. "Nearly 80% of the businesses we worked with are going to go bankrupt, I think, in the next year."

"It is extremely dangerous even to buy Wi-Fi because the regime has declared that this is a counterrevolutionary activity," said Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian history. "They feel — and I think they're right — that this is the most existential threat they have. That's why they have gone berserk," Milani said.