All villages to have access to high-speed internet

TEHRAN, Feb. 07 (MNA) – Iran’s ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said all villages in the country will be connected to high-speed internet by the end of President Rouhani’s term of office. Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi stressed the government’s determination for establishing communications with even the furthest village in the country and providing high-speed internet there, adding “by the end of the government’s term of office, all villages will have been connected to high-speed internet and villagers will enjoy all the practical advantages of this opportunity.” So far, some $300,000 has been allocated for this project, he added. The ICT minister noted the various services to be made available once all villages are connected to high-speed internet, saying “at the moment, the villagers are receiving necessary education on how to make optimum use of this opportunity and boost the economy in rural areas.” “With high-speed internet, the Ministry of Health will be able to provide medical services from distance and this will further improve the welfare of people in rural areas,” he noted. Last November, Vaezi mentioned that around 8,000 villages have been provided with internet and now the ICT Ministry had put it out to tender to find the best company to do the same thing for the other 25,000 villages. Also in January, Vaezi said the country’s international internet bandwidth has grown 3.5x in two years and hit the capacity of 276 GB/s data transfer rate. Since the beginning of Fajr Decade (Feb. 1), Minister Vaezi has visited provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Qom, Fars, Kerman, Hormozgan and Isfahan and launched the first phase of Internet supply to the villages of each of these provinces.