🔶 Long-range radio; a network that works without the internet

Iran, January 2026; at the same time as the largest protests since the Islamic Revolution, the government completely shut down internet access. The website “Internet Outage Detection and Analysis System” (IODA), an organization that monitors internet connections worldwide, announced that effectively there is no data traffic anymore. Doug Madory, an internet infrastructure expert, described the event as “the worst internet shutdown in the world.” Out of the sight of the world’s public opinion, during these same weeks, up to 18,000 people were killed as part of the government’s crackdown.

This is not an exception. From Russia and Belarus to Myanmar and Sudan, wherever governments fear the formation of resistance, the internet becomes a weapon in their hands. This is one of the lessons in the playbook of authoritarian governments: whoever cannot communicate with others cannot be organized. That is why activists around the world are facing a shared question: if the government fully monitors all communications or shuts down the internet altogether, how can people communicate? One of the answers comes from an unexpected place: the world of amateur radio enthusiasts.

The name of this technology is “LoRa” (LoRa), an abbreviation of Long Range Radio, meaning “long-range radio.” The technology was originally developed for industrial sensors, but the idea is very simple: small radio modules roughly the size of a cigarette pack—available for about 20 euros—send encrypted data packets over several kilometers. Without Wi-Fi, without a mobile phone network, and without an internet connection.

These devices, called “nodes” (Node), use license-free frequency bands. The same bands assigned around the world for civilian equipment such as weather stations and garage door openers.