We spoke to multiple Iranian Internet users following the governments grand “unveiling” of the National Information Network. They either didn't know what the Network was, or thought it was a joke not to be taken seriously. Photo of street scene in Tajrish Tehran by Kamyar Adl via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Drumroll please: Iran's “National Information Network” is finally complete. On August 28, 2016 Iranian government agencies responsible for Internet policy unveiled Iran's intranet or Shoma, as it is called in Persian. Since at least 2006 the NIN has been part of Iran's highly controlled networked communication infrastructure, offering Iranians access to websites for key public services such as healthcare, utilities and education. So what officials “unveiled” last week is really nothing new. But the motivations behind the network — and the ways that the government is urging Iranians to use it — may be shifting. Iran's moderate President Hassan Rouhani has described the Network as “one of the key components of the country’s independence,” framing it as integral to Iran's cybersecurity. In Iran's 2011-2016 development plan, the project was defined as follows: شبکه ملی اطلاعات (IP) کشور، شبکه‌ای مبتنی بر قـرارداد اینترنت به ‌همراه سوئیچها و مسیریابها و مراکز داده‌ای است به صورتی که درخواستهای دسترسی داخلی و أخذ اطلاعاتی که در مراکز داده داخلی نگهداری می‌شوند به هیچ‌وجه از طریق خارج کشور مسیریابی نشود و امکان ایجاد شبکه‌های اینترانت و خصوصی و امن داخلی در آن فراهم شود.\ The country’s National Information Network should be an IP-based Internet supported by data centres that are completely undetectable and impenetrable by foreign sources and allow the creation of private, secure Intranet networks. Officials have emphasized how the network may help guard against massive breaches of national Internet security such as malicious Israeli-American cyberweapon Stuxnet directed at Iran's nuclear facilities. At the unveiling, deputy ICT Minister Nasrallah Jahangard further elaborated on the need to counter cyberattacks: Generally, all networks around the world are exposed to hacking attempts. Not being an exception, Iran’s network was target to a heavy hacking attempt about two weeks ago, limiting the international interactions of two or three of our internet providers. It is unclear which incident Jahangard is referring to, however Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace announced at the beginning of August that it was looking into the possibility of cyberattacks being the root of the cause of a series of fires and explosions in Iran's oil and gas facilities. Another key feature of the network is its speed. Tasnim News, an agency closely aligned with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, described the NIN as “a new internet system with higher security which will be up to 60 times faster than the best speeds currently available.”Although Iran remains one of the countries in the Middle East with the highest proportions of Internet users, recent figures indicate that Iran's bandwidth currently sits on average at 70.5 gigabytes per second. The NIN meanwhile boasts an average speed of 4000 gigabytes per second. Iranian technologist and scholar Mehdi Yahyanejad told Global Voices: Overall, it seems the plan is to encourage Iranian websites to relocate their hosting to Iran by discriminatory pricing of the bandwidth for domestic versus international Internet connections. Hosting most of such websites inside the country makes it easier for the Iranian government to shutdown Internet if needed. Indeed, public documents describing the NIN boast “an economy for local content.” The clear advantage, according to the government, is that connecting to these services over NIN will be both faster and more secure. These are the key selling points the government is highlighting to get Iranians to use the network, and to host their websites there. Officials also have promised domestic video services with affordable prices for end users, as well as an “economy of datacentres.” The government has long touted the hosting of data centres inside of Iran, a feature that could ensure that the data and traffic of Iranian users would never leave the country. This emphasis on national datacentres was seen last May when Iran's preeminent Internet policy body, the Supreme Council for Cyberspace, gave an ultimatum to foreign messaging applications including Telegram, Instagram and WhatsApp, requiring that they either begin hosting Iranian users’ data inside the country (within a year's time), or be subject to censorship. It is unclear which companies will comply, or whether Iran will follow through with the censorship. In July 2016, authorities used the foreign data centre argument as a reason to filter the Pokémon Go application.