Iran’s second largest mobile telephone line operator, MTN-Irancell, has announced that it has upgraded both Persian Gulf free zone islands of Kish and Qeshm to 4G LTE services, according to the company’s website. The announcement follows the company’s previous upgrade in southern cities including Bandar Abbas. MTN-Irancell said it has rushed to upgrade the free zones prior to the New Year (Nowruz) holidays to meet the additional demands due to increased travels. The two major telephone networks, Irancell and MCI, have been at loggerheads in terms of upgrading their respective networks in recent weeks. At the end of November 2014, the government granted both companies licenses to offer third and fourth generation mobile phone services to their existing client base. With 3G and 4G networks, download speeds have been recorded 3.5 to 40 Mbps, upload speeds range from 512 to 15 Mbps and the responding time from 50 to 150 milliseconds.
