In a follow-up of efforts linking ICT infrastructures to rural areas, 400 billion rials ($1.4 million) have been allocated to Kerman Province.
During a visit to the province on Monday, Hossein Dehdashti, a deputy minister of information and communications technologies, said the budget will help expand ICT and internet access in 21 villages of Kerman, the ICT Ministry’s website, Ict.gov.ir, reported.
“Villages of Qalan, Dehmirza, Bideshk, Abdashtou, Ahmadabad and Ardikan are among areas that are planned to be connected to high-speed internet by the end of the current Iranian year [March 2022],” the minister said in a meeting with provincial officials.
Besides the villages, Dehdashti said, around 90 kilometers of fiber-optic cables will be laid along the rural roads, preparing the ground for the connection of 120 villages in future.
Work is also on track to develop ICT coverage in the western province of Zanjan.
According to the ministry officials, 100 villages with over 20 households each in Zanjan will be connected to the internet soon.
Furthermore, an ICT development center is planned to be inaugurated in the province with an investment of 320 billion rials ($1.12 million).
The promotion of communication technologies makes life convenient for people, especially during the current pandemic.
Experts say that with over 113 million pupils, 1 million teachers, 4 million university students and 140,000 professors nationwide using online facilities for educational purposes, ICT development plays a pivotal role in everyday life of people.
Internet and social media have become an inseparable part of commerce in today’s economy, since almost all small and large enterprises use different online platforms to expand their businesses.
Earlier in September, Mobile Telecommunications Company of Iran (also known as Hamrah-e Avval in Persian) declared that since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 2021), it has established 48 mobile communication stations in the western province of Kermanshah.
MCI says it has invested 480 billion rials ($1.68 million) to launch such stations in collaboration with the provincial office of the Telecommunications Company of Iran.
These efforts have been in line with Universal Service Obligations, proposed by the ICT Ministry, which obliges internet service providers to ensure that a baseline level of services is provided to every resident nationwide.
NIN’s Role
Officials attribute these developments to the launch of the National Information Network in August 2016 as an alternative and independent network with content compatible with Islamic values to facilitate Iranian users’ access to indigenous content.
In December 2020, the ICT Ministry announced that it has established over 80% of the integrated network’s infrastructure through the expansion of fiber-optic connections, establishment of communication stations and towers, and a surge in the number of data processing racks and data centers.
Hamid Fattahi, a former deputy ICT minister, said the completion of NIN will remove the deficiencies and poor quality of internet and mobile connections in rural areas.
He noted that the ICT Ministry has put maximum effort into boosting NIN’s performance by expanding the network’s data centers and data processing capacity.
In mid-September, the first phase of a major database was launched in Bumehen, east of Tehran, with an investment of 4 trillion rials ($14 million) by the Telecommunications Infrastructure Company.
The database is aimed at empowering NIN, expanding the country’s communications infrastructure and materializing a digital economy. It boasts a terabit per second storage and a computing capacity sufficient to run basic functional services, including email, messengers and search engines.
Noting that these basic services are vital for internet users, Fattahi said the infrastructure enables experts to develop local versions of today’s most popular services and gradually replace them, since a domestic database can reduce the cost and increase the speed and quality of services.
The database specified 100 racks and 500 servers to would-be local messengers and search engines. The capacity can be easily boosted, depending on the type of services targeted and the development of hosting and cloud computing infrastructure.
A rack houses servers, networking devices, cables and other data center computing equipment.
“The database has a massive capacity for boosting employment in private businesses,” he said.
In line with efforts to boost NIN’s function, major mobile operator MTN-Irancell launched a datacenter with 407 racks in late May.
Executed with an investment of 11 trillion rials ($38.6 million), the data center added a 25% data storage capacity.
Officials say the project is aimed at extending a helping hand to data security and independence, while contributing to the development of NIN in tandem with the digital economy.
