It's way more centralized.

Iran has been rolling out the National Information Network (essentially a whitelisted internet) since the Green Revolution [0] back in 2009-12. Iran has a surprisingly robust domestic ecosystem of hyperscalers [1] and telco infra [6][7] built out over the past decade with limited outside involvement and a severe sanctions regime, and have even started exporting Iranian IT services to Uganda [2], Kenya [3], South Africa [4], Venezuela [5], Russia [8], and China [8].

Iran also uses a two-tier SIM card system - ideologically vetted individuals get a "white" SIM which gives full ingress/egress outside the NIN and others have a normal SIM that can be blacklisted from egressing outside the NIN.

Notice how Iranian websites have a page saying "Transferring to Website" - that's the gateway page for the NIN.

[0] - https://citizenlab.ca/irans-national-information-network/

[1] - https://www.arvancloud.ir/fa

[2] - https://tvbrics.com/en/news/uganda-and-iran-to-boost-ict-co-...

[3] - https://mail.techreviewafrica.com/public/news/1361/kenya-and...

[4] - https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena_daily_news?news=64545

[5] - https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/08/06/752585/Iranian-fibe...

[6] - https://zmc.co.ir/

[7] - https://www.rayafiber.com/en/home

[8] - https://www.kharon.com/brief/iran-sanctions-maximum-pressure...

Internet outage in Iran reaches 1,008 hours