While the Iranian public struggles with blocked, slow, and filtered internet, it turns out there is another route - a special browsing package called Internet Pro, which provides good access to the network but only to those who receive approval or are willing to pay a lot.
The official price already offered to "selected" professionals is 1.98 million toman for 50 GB. With VAT, that's almost 2.2 million toman, which is about $12 according to today's updated exchange rate of 182,000 toman per dollar.
No wonder a black market has developed around this. Reports in Iran talk about unofficial activation at a price of 5–10 million toman — between $27 and $55. Today, an even more unusual claim was published when an Iranian network activist wrote that he was offered to pay 60 million toman (about $330) to have the service activated for him.
The Iranian regulator admits that the service is supposed to be provided only to businesses and with special approval, but is "checking for violations." However, it is quite clear that government entities are behind this. Network activists mainly attack the country's largest cellular operator for becoming "the largest VPN (Virtual Private Network) provider in the region."