[yingw787]

Are there material differences between wireless and wired Internet w.r.t. infrastructure? Is wired Internet easier to trace or something? I'm not too familiar with computer networks, but I thought that they would be the same.

[PeterisP]

It affects different user segments differently. Disconnecting wireless internet means that you're mostly disconnecting consumers/social media users/general public, while the businesses that are non-digital but rely on the internet for their daily operations keep functioning - if you disconnect all the internet then you're likely to disrupt e.g. ATMs and retail store logistics and all kinds of technical service monitoring which cause you trouble; but if you "just" disconnect all the mobile internet (except for a whitelist of phone numbers used by gov't employees) and the residental networks, then the general public is without communications but the economy can still be mostly functional.

Also, a key goal is to disrupt the communications between protesters in the streets - so that they can't coordinate any reaction between themselves or those who are at home until they themselves leave the streets; we saw similar actions a few times last year in Belarus.

[yingw787]

Makes sense; thanks so much for the explanation!