The latest regulatory report on the status of information and communications technology in Iran, based on the statistics of the last month of the previous fiscal year (ended March 20, 2022), indicates that the internet speed provided to users was far from desirable.
This is while figures show that the mobile and fixed internet penetration rates have increased during the period, Communications Regulatory Authority reported.
Data quoted by the regulatory report show that during that month, 63.5% of home fixed internet subscribers had access to speeds of 10 megabits per second or lower while that of fixed internet penetration hit 13%, which is very low compared to the mobile internet penetration rate.
According to the guideline of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, by fiscal 2025-26, 80% of Iran's households should have access to fixed internet with an average speed of 25 Mbps, according to the news portal of Peivast.com.
According to this report, fixed home internet has 9.93 million subscribers in Iran and 18% of them get speeds of 2 Mbps or lower.
The report also stated that the total number of fixed internet subscribers (whether home or commercial users) has reached 11.05 million subscribers. In fact, the fixed internet penetration rate only increased by 0.19% during Feb. 19-March 20 compared with the previous fiscal month.
According to the report, Iran Telecommunications Company is still the most important and popular fixed internet company in Iran and accounts for nearly half of the subscribers. Nevertheless, it does not provide Wi-Fi and TD-LTE services.
With regard to mobile internet, its penetration rate has reached 114%.
An important point in the new report of the Radio Regulatory Authority is the rise in the number of 3G subscribers of Hamrah-e-Aval and Rightel.
In total, the number of mobile broadband subscribers has increased by 4 million compared to the previous month to 95.8 million.
According to regulatory statistics, the number of Rightel subscribers reached 5 million by March 20, but its broadband subscribers are below 4.2 million.
This means that more than 994,000 Rightel subscribers do not use mobile internet. In fact, Iran's third biggest mobile phone operator does not offer 2G SIM cards.
Iran Internet Operations Appraised
Iran’s internet regulatory performance is not satisfactory
compared to some neighboring countries and globally, according to the latest report published by the International Telecommunications Union.
While the decline in quality and slowness of internet in the country have provoked criticism from many digital economy activists and users, experts attribute the current situation to various challenges.
To date, many criticisms have focused on bandwidth shortages, infrastructural weaknesses and government policies such as filtering and deliberate disruptions, Ebinews.ir reported.
Some experts believe that the non-competitive cyberspace, poor regulatory performance and the interference of several regulators and decision-making organizations with diverse agenda are among the main factors posing challenges in the field.
If these regulators, like those of other countries, had more independence and cohesion in decision-making, the situation could have been much better.
Although the quality of the country's regulatory performance in the global survey is favorable for the first to fourth generation internet, its fifth-generation upgrade leaves much to be desired.
According to the latest ITU evaluation of the regulatory performance in different countries, which focuses on the development of 5G and its role in shaping the digital economy, Iran's score is 48.46 out of 100.
Compared to Turkey with a score of 66 or other peer countries, this is quite low.
As in recent months, the weakness in the quality of the internet has led to widespread user dissatisfaction.
In recent years, Iran’s Communications Regulatory Authority signed the "bitstream" contract or a deal for implementing a fiber-optic development project, but it is unlikely that the outcome of these decisions will improve the situation in the next three years. So, Iranians will have to grin and bear the current internet problems.
Iranian Regulation in World Rankings
Telecommunications in most countries is initially owned by the public sector and monopolized by the government.
However, telecom resources and infrastructure are used for the further development of the country and a regulator (Communications Regulatory Authority in Iran) generally intervenes to make adjustments and use this monopoly in the national interest.
Reforms such as privatization, liberalization and regulation pursue the ultimate goal of shaping a fully competitive market.
One of the measures taken by ITU every year since 2008 is to examine the regulatory performance of countries based on several indicators and assign a rank to each country.
By 2020, when countries had not made much progress in terms of adopting 5G internet, ITU reviewed the regulators of different countries based on a special methodology that was specific to the first to fourth generations.
In the surveys of 2020, Iran obtained a score of 86 out of 100, which is a desirable score. But in the 2021 surveys, as the methodology had changed and the main focus was on the development of 5G internet and digital economy, Iran scored 48.46 out of 100.
