Farhoud Kazemi also spoke with ISNA about the underdeveloped landline services in Tehran. He heads Ertebate Moshtarake Shahr, an agency affiliated to TM which is in charge of monitoring telecom infrastructure in Tehran.
“There are 4,500 cell sites in Tehran. However its landline infrastructure used for offering internet services is underdeveloped, which has taken a toll on quality of services in most areas, forcing the public to choose mobile internet services over landline,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.
Increasing demand for mobile services can certainly lead to disruptions in mobile services, he added.
Calling on authorities to increase investment in infrastructure development, he also said that in developed countries, there are more than one cell site for every 1,000 people, which figure in Tehran is 0.52.
"Besides working on the quality of broadband internet services, officials should focus on increasing the share of landline services to attain a balance between the two modes of connectivity," he said.
Kazemi said apart from the general public, ICT services have a wide range of clients in the metropolis, including Tehran Municipality and affiliated institutions, as well as service providers in other sectors, including health.
"On the one hand, low quality and speed of wired and landline internet, and on the other, frequent disruptions in mobile data connection cause inconvenience and in some cases serious problems in everyday personal and administrational activities," he said.
The communication infrastructure should be developed in such a way that it should not disadvantage a particular group of users.
Nationwide Developments
Expansion of communications services and promotion of telecom infrastructure investment have been high on President Hassan Rouhani’s agenda since he took office for his first term in 2013.
Data released by the Communications Regulatory Authority in October 2019 show that the sector has observed a significant growth over the past few years.
Internet penetration rate has reached 90.78% in the country, but the mobile internet penetration rate is lower and stands at 78.14%. About two years ago, the rates stood at 53.53% and 41.72% respectively.
Iran has over 64 million mobile internet subscribers, in addition to the registration of 10.3 million landline internet subscriptions. The numbers are significantly higher compared to two years ago—33.2 million and 9.4 million respectively.
The total number of internet subscribers has reached 74.5 million.
Data show Iran's mobile communications network has grown fast over the past few years with the registration of 93 million mobile subscriptions. The number is significantly higher from the 63 million registered five years ago.
Iran has 1,241 cities and a population of 82 million. The country’s mobile communications penetration rate has reached 113.34%.
ICT Revenue
With the government's support and growth in ICT sector, the nominal market value of ICT-related services reached 400 trillion rials ($3.3 billion) in the fiscal 2018-19, marking a 110% growth in the first six years of Rouhani’s term in office, the information and communications technologies minister says.
Earlier in November 2019, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said the ICT market was worth 400 trillion rials ($2.9 billion) in the Iranian year ending March 2019.
The figure indicates a twofold increase compared with 190 trillion rials ($1.4 billion) in 2013.
The ICT minister emphasized that the growth was achieved, despite the decline in industrial and agricultural sectors caused by US sanctions. He called on the government to employ up-to-date management strategies to further support the technology ecosystem.