Head of Nasr Organization in Tehran: ‌ The government must have the courage to change the fixed and mobile internet tariffs

For years, fixed-line Internet companies, in conjunction with the Regulatory Authority for Radiocommunications, have been writing correspondence to change tariffs in these two areas logically. They believe that rationalizing tariffs will help them invest in expanding their network from this revenue source.

However, the previous two governments did not agree much with the tariff change in this area and did their best not to change the fixed and mobile internet tariffs until the end of their government; But the 13th government’s communications ministry seems to have no choice but to change tariffs to grow fixed internet, the area in which it has promised to grow. However, he announced on the sidelines of the telecom and in response to Zomit that fixed and mobile internet tariffs will not change due to a parliamentary resolution this year; But in his first press conference, he gave the green light to internet activists and mobile operators and announced that tariffs in these two sectors would gradually change.

In this regard, today the managers of the Tehran Computer Guild Organization announced in a press conference that if the Internet is not happy these days, it is due to lack of investment, which is also due to the fact that tariffs in this sector remain stable for many years.

Mohammad Ali Sharifi-Al-Hosseini, a member of the Internet Commission of Nasr Organization of Tehran, in this press conference, in response to the question of why this organization and this commission did not react to the recent internet disruptions in the country, stated that they raised this issue in the Regulatory Commission. Followed by a representative of the private sector in this commission.

He attributes the internet problems these days to the lack of investment in the industry and states that setting inappropriate tariffs for the fixed and then mobile internet sector has prevented any investment from entering the field. He told Zomit about this:

Since 2015, when the regulation on tariffs was formally defined by the regulator, it has not been possible for the private sector to develop fixed internet services, while the government and the regulatory body should facilitate the work and remove the obstacles in this sector. , He was holding.

He sees the municipality and the Ministry of Energy as one of the obstacles to cooperating in providing their infrastructure, such as fiber optics, to companies active in this field, and emphasizes that the regulator should facilitate communication with these institutions so that their surplus services can be used by Internet companies. ; But the main problem in this area is tariffs, which do not meet the development of fixed communications in the country.

In this regard, Hossein Eslami, President of Nasr, also links the situation of internet and mobile networks these days to the non-investment of various groups in this field and announces that in previous years, fixed and mobile internet tariffs will continue in the way they are implemented now. Has made it impossible for communication operators. Islami said in this regard:

The government must have the courage to make decisions based on reality, and setting a price ceiling does not help and does not even support the private sector and the final consumer.

Emphasizing that tariffs in the mobile and fixed Internet sector should be reasonable, he called on the regulator to make the issue of tariffs available to the private sector. Eslami welcomed the regulator on the issue and expressed hope that by doing so, the problems of the fixed internet development sector could be largely resolved.