The National Fiber Optic Plan for Homes and Businesses, which is likely the most important program of the Minister of Communications and Information Technology of the thirteenth government, has been accompanied by extensive media coverage by this ministry. In the latest statistics published by the regulatory body, the fate of 1,234 cities has been determined; however, two provinces are still completely without an operator. Irancell has the largest share in terms of commitment to licenses and the number of cities covered, although the Telecommunications Company of Iran has not yet entered this plan, and this has cast doubt on achieving the goal of providing fiber optic network coverage to 20 million households by 2025.
According to IDEA, Eisa Zare’pour, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, almost always refers to the Fiber Optic Development Plan in most of his interviews. Under this plan, it was intended that by 2025, twenty million households in the country would be covered by a fiber optic network. The plan was supposed to be implemented with the full cooperation of fixed-line operators; however, after the approval of the Commission for the Regulation of Regulations, Irancell entered the plan, while the Telecommunications Company of Iran still has an uncertain status.
Nevertheless, at least on paper, most cities in the country have operators capable of creating fiber optic coverage.
National Coverage
The latest national divisions, as reported on the website of the Statistical Center of Iran, dating back to the end of 1401(2024), have divided Iran into 1,431 cities. According to what is mentioned on the regulatory website, the fiber-optic deployment has been determined in 1,234 cities, and 197 cities still do not have an operator. All cities in the provinces of Ardabil, Ilam, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Zanjan, Semnan, Kurdistan, Kerman, Kermanshah, Golestan, Gilan, Hamadan, and Yazd have operators. In some provinces like Sistan and Baluchestan and Hormozgan, there are also very few cities without coverage, which seems to be related to the creation of new cities, and it can be said that there is complete commitment in these provinces. In contrast, Khorasan North and Khorasan South provinces still do not have any operators.
In some provinces, there is only one active operator, while in others, there are several operators.
However, the situation can also be examined from the operators’ perspective. So far, Irancell has the highest commitment to providing coverage, which will be present in 475 cities. In terms of the number of provinces, this operator also has more commitments than others. After that, Hiweb is committed to covering 200 cities.
After them, Asiatech and MobinNet are present, and the other operators have each committed to covering fewer than 100 cities. The lowest commitment is related to Rightel, which will cover 20 cities in two provinces, East Azerbaijan and Tehran. It should be noted that in larger cities, there is usually more than one operator present, including provincial capitals.
In Provincial Capitals
Creating coverage in provincial capitals usually faces more enthusiasm from operators because the likelihood of attracting subscribers is higher.
In cities like Tabriz, Isfahan, Karaj, Tehran, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Shiraz, and Qom, more than one operator is present. In contrast, in cities like Birjand and Bojnourd, the name of any operator has not yet been mentioned.
The statistic that has not yet been presented is the number of households that will be covered in each city or province. Since the Unified Network and Communication Services Provider (UNSP) license is not granted based on the number of provinces covered by households, it should be seen how many households each operator will cover in the city or province where they operate.
Incentive for Coverage
Resolution number 2 of session number 336 of the Regulatory Commission has considered an amount as an incentive for each operator for the creation of FTTH coverage. This amount is deducted from the annual fee that must be paid to the regulatory authority.
For each household covered by the fiber optic network located in provincial centers (excluding the eight major cities), five million rials (500,000 tomans) will be deducted. For each household covered in other cities/villages of the country, twelve million rials (1.2 million tomans) will be deducted. And for each subscriber connected with active FTTH service in the cities/villages of the country, twenty million rials (2 million tomans) will be deducted from each operator’s fee. This is applicable if the coverage and connected subscribers are within the authorized period.
Since it is not yet clear how many households each operator will have in which cities and villages under coverage, the exact amount of this exemption cannot be determined.
The information on the regulatory website, as of September 9, reports that more than 3 million households in the country are covered by FTTH, with 16% progress in the project. Moreover, more than 450,000 FTTH subscribers in the country are using this service.
Since the regulatory quarterly report on the country’s communication status for the end of this spring has not been published, it is not possible to examine the operators’ success in fulfilling their commitments in more detail.
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