Iran has come out to deny the online reports which have indicated that it plans to cut access to the World Wide Web (Internet) in August and replace it with a national intranet (Iran-ternet).

The IB Times article which started the rumours apparently picked an April 1 hoax and used it as the basis of its story, Iran’s Ministry of Communication said on the ministry’s website www.ict.gov.rw. The website itself is not accessible from outside Iran.

“The report is in no way confirmed by the ministry completely baseless,” the ministry statement said.