Iran has the third cheapest broadband Internet services worldwide while it is ranked 145th in terms of average speed, UK-based broadband comparison site Cable reported.
After Ukraine and Sri Lanka, Iran is the third country with the cheapest Internet services around the globe.
Published on cable.co.uk, the report said while Internet services are relatively slow (512Kbps to 16Mbps) in Iran, the country has a growing landline Internet services marketplace, with providers such as Shatel and Pishgaman competing to offer some of the cheapest connectivity in the world.
The report says that the average cost of broadband services in Iran is $8.2 per month. The average cost was $3.86 last year, indicating an 89% year-on-year price increase. Last year Iran was ranked as the top country with the cheapest broadband Internet service.
Cable further reports that the average download speed in Iran is 2.2Mbps in Iran and the country is 145th in the firm’s broadband average speed ranking.
According to the company, it takes over 5 hours to download a typical HD movie (5GB) in Iran. The firm further adds that the average speed has increased by 41% over the past year. Average speed in Iran has been calculated based on 16,738 tests.
The data was collected by M-Lab, a partnership between New America's Open Technology Institute, Google Open Source Research, Princeton University's PlanetLab and other supporting partners, and was compiled by Cable.
Most and Least Expensive Packages
The five cheapest Internet packages come from Syria ($2.42), Ukraine ($2.16), Iran ($1.87), Venezuela ($1.68), and Kyrgyzstan ($1.27).
When it comes to the cheapest, though, according to Cable, users should not expect a fast or even in some cases, reliable connection for the most part, with Syria, Iran, Venezuela and Kyrgyzstan, the packages offer relatively slow speeds and somewhat limited availability.
Ukraine is the exception here, with broadband services that are not only cheap but also fast—its cheapest package offers a very serviceable 20Mbps.
The five most expensive consumer broadband packages are offered in Burkina Faso ($651.72), Laos ($818.13), Namibia ($1,117.87), Mauritania ($1,368.72) and Papua New Guinea ($1,849.09).
The expense comes from a combination of extremely low take-up (no economy of scale) and the fact that in most cases the price customers pay will go in large part to actually build a physical line to their property since few already exist. The costs of the services increase exponentially the further subscribers’ live from each country’s main urban centers.
Average Speed
Of the five cheapest countries for broadband, Iran is the only country with average measured speeds low enough (2.2Mbps) to compare with those of the five most expensive. In all other cases, the speeds offered by the five cheapest exceed those of the five most expensive.
This should come as no major surprise. As a general rule, countries which offer cheap broadband do so as a result of having a homogeneous reliable infrastructure and a healthy competitive marketplace with a large number of providers.
This is while Iran’s broadband Internet service providers have been struggling with overbearing regulations, along with government intervention in the form of extensive support for state-owned firms like Telecommunication Company of Iran which has disrupted the market’s growth.
A glance is enough to see that, generally speaking, the most expensive countries in the world for broadband are also some of the slowest. The average speed in all of them is lower than 5Mbps, which is too slow to stream an HD movie—something most subscribers are sure to expect if they are paying $500 or more for a broadband service every month.
Mauritania, the most expensive country recorded in the study, is also one of the slowest in the world, offering average speeds of just 0.7Mbps—too slow even for standard definition video.
Sri Lanka is the cheapest country in which to buy broadband in Asia (as well as second-cheapest globally) with an average package price of $5.65 per month, followed by Iran ($8.20) and Nepal ($16.47).
Communications in Iran
Over the past decade, there has been acceptable growth in the availability of communications in Iran, especially in the expanding urban areas, led by growth in mobile communications, and more recently, with the introduction of third and fourth generation of mobile telecommunication technologies (3G and 4G).
According to Iran Communication Regulatory Authority data published on opendata.cra.ir, there are 60 million mobile Internet users in Iran.
Furthermore, 12.8 million Iranians have a landline Internet subscription. Iran’s population is 81 million.
CRA put the Internet penetration rate in Iran at 88.86%. The ombudsman says 82% of Iranians use mobile Internet services.
