Almost 20 trillion rials ($604 million at market exchange rate) will be invested in the telecoms sector in the current fiscal year (started March 21), said Kazem Ibrahimi, CEO of the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI).
TCI plans to upgrade its infrastructure with a large portion of the funds allocated to developing landline and mobile phone networks, ICTNA quoted him as saying.
According to the official, a comprehensive plan has been devised and will be implemented to switch from Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) technology to an all-IP (Internet Protocol) infrastructure. Meaning standard telephone calls will be transmitted digitally rather than the previous analogue method.
The migration from TDM to IP will, above all, optimize telecommunication speed, he stressed.
Another major transition plan is the Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC).
FMC is a transition point in the telecommunications industry that will remove distinctions between fixed and mobile networks, providing a superior experience to customers by creating seamless services using a combination of fixed broadband and local access wireless technologies.
The measure will cut costs, increase revenue, and yield more profits.
"Boosting customer satisfaction and standardizing customer services" are also on the agenda, Ibrahimi noted.
Iran's traditional telecoms sector has suffered from a lack of investment in recent years; however during the Ahmadinejad administration TCI was given the right to increase its fixed-line standard charge to fund future upgrade of the telephone network.
