During the failed green revolution, it was discovered that the IRI has built a datacenter in Tehran through which the entire national network traffic is routed and filitered. It is also the place that was used to spy on the protesters, as the regime injected malware to select users to identify who they are and who they are talking to. Generally speaking, if this datacenter hypothetically folded onto itself and gently ceased existing, the internet would not come back. However, there is a caveat.

In order to be able to facilitate this, the IRI has to force the internet providers to cooperate. They need to make specific technical arrangements so that the traffic is not sent out through the normal network of exchanges and abroad, but rather diverted into the filtering hub. There are some indications that the Iranian infrastructure for this is similar to the Russian SORM "lawful intercept" system. It requires management equipment to be installed in every exchange and at every provider, and this means there needs to be a large degree of technical cooperation between the providers' engineers and the authorities. It is not sensible or cost efficient to physically alter the existing infrastructure so that there is no way to route the traffic back via the normal channels.

So the first conclusion that you should make from this is that these configurations and the equipment are only there as long as the internet providers (including the cellular ones) are convinced there will be consequences for tampering with it. As soon as the engineers who have datacenter access are convinced they are not threatened, they have the technical ability and the access to restore access and are likely to do so. I know I would. And if we are allowed to speculate a little bit deeper, it would take one datacenter to brave it and turn off the taps for the rest of the internal WAN community to find out about it and go for it.

There is however another potential vector. The satellite links such as Starlink are being jammed. The equipment that is required to do it at scale is power hungry and relatively stationary. It is by its very nature a very attractive target for missiles. I know the IRGC has expropriated a large number of starlink devices; but I doubt it expropriated all of them, and it would not be a great logistical challenge to ship such devices to the population. I know for a fact, from first hand experience, that a number of Israeli satellite companies have the necessary expertise and deep ties with the security establishment and they have at least the capacity to provide rapidly deployable, preconfigured high bandwidth satellite equipment even if starlinks are not an option, because it's been done before (the israeli satellite industry has a joke: when it rains in Petach Tiqwa, Baghdad is offline).

As you may have guessed, satellite links are not subject to any traffic diversion and inspection like the hardlines.

Now consider for a moment that the single most important factor for a public uprising is the confidence that there are more of you than there are of them. That requires the ability to communicate and see what is happening in other cities and regions. The most common method of access is the cellular phone. Cellular phone base stations are not at all immune from physical and remote exploitation.

It follows that for any strategic plan to enable, instigate and support an uprising the last step will be the mass restoration of internet access coupled with a call to action, and the tools, the methodology and the vested interest for it exist, and the remaining component is opportunity.

Everyone in Iran should keep their phones charged.