Paper 2026/1535 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2026/1535 ↗

ViNET: Connecting the Unconnected using Video over LTE

Abstract

Internet shutdowns are used authoritarian regimes to suppress communication that end up crippling essential Internet-driven services, besides the obvious silencing of dissent. Traditional tools like VPNs and Tor, dependent on active Internet connections, falter during these blackouts. Earlier solutions, such as Dolphin, delivered meagre bandwidth and weak privacy safeguards, exposing a glaring weakness in the battle against digital oppression. ViNET, a system that cleverly repurposes Video over LTE (ViLTE) calls, often operational during shutdowns, into a stealthy conduit for real-time Internet access. By ingeniously embedding network traffic in ViLTE packets, ViNET achieves robust 60 to 400 Kbps transmission rates, matching 2G speeds and surpassing previous solutions like Dolphin by 1500x–4000x, while ensuring end-to-end TLSbased confidentiality and integrity. This performance enables text-based web browsing with page loads in seconds to minutes, 1 MByte file downloads in ≈30s, and seamless messaging over Telegram. ViNET also outsmarts machine learning-based traffic classifiers, achieving a remarkable false positive rate, at times as high as 40%, when attempting to detect ViNET using SOTA models. With such standout metrics, ViNET emerges as a formidable ally, offering a performant, reliable and privacy-first lifeline, in the face of Internet shutdowns.