For such a notoriously wired country (as least among urban youth), Iran certainly has slow download speeds. According to an international Internet speed test website, Iran ranks number 189 among countries in terms of download speed.

That places Iran behind Iraq and Afghanistan, nations whose infrastructure was either never really there or destroyed by war. South Korea’s Internet speeds are about 500 times faster than Iran’s.

The amazing thing in Iran is that the slow speeds hasn’t prevented people, especially the younger generation, from accessing information.

The eternally long download times are just accepted as a part of life. As one Internet user described on the Tabnak website: “I start downloading a small-sized program then I go to eat my dinner and come back and it’s still downloading.”

The slow speed, of course, suits the regime. Rights activists and web experts have accused the government of deliberately keeping the network slow, especially after the disputed presidential election. And instead of a blanket Internet shutdown the government has instead been more selective about the sites it targets, focusing on opposition sites and social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.