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Iran Telecom is planning to completely eliminate its copper network in five years and replace it with fiber-optic cables, a move officials believe will improve the quality of the internet and deal with increasing user demand.
Davood Zareian, director of communications and public relations at Iran Telecom, explained that most of the transition will take place in 2025 and 2026. He explained that 11 firms are currently licensed to deploy fiber, which he added ensures competition against copper-monopoly days.
"If a firm wants to cooperate with the project, cooperation through collaborative investment is possible," Zareian told reporters at Elecomp 2025 press conference in Tehran.
Challenges with municipalities
Zareian confirmed ongoing differences with municipalities that have hindered fiber installation. He stated that agreements have been signed in a number of provinces, such as Khorasan Razavi, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Yazd, and Kermanshah, but there are still issues in other cities.
He also bemoaned the tendency for users to blame Iran Telecom for a poor internet connection when filtering policies are the main culprit. "Filtering reduced international traffic by 40 percent at first," he said. "When VPN usage grew, traffic was back to the old range."
Karashab subsidiary and new services
Zareian alluded to a shift in direction for Karashab, a subsidiary focused on serving new business models and software development. Karashab unveiled a series of initiatives including:
Artificial intelligence-based video monitoring (Project Hoban): Individuals will be able to upload videos of suspicious activity in their area to Telecom's cloud servers. Artificial intelligence-based smart analysis technologies in the next stage will enhance security.
Cloud gaming: A service designed to enable users to enjoy high-quality games on Android-based devices without expensive hardware, minimizing players' budgets.
Ali Mehrpouya, the Karashab CEO, said that the subsidiary aims to be a "technology connector," working with startups to build value-added services and digital content.
