According to ICT Public Relation, the contract for establishment of a point of presence (PoP) Transit Center was signed today afternoon at the sidelines of ‘Iran Connect 2016’ conference, between Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, Deputy Minister of Communication, and Alessandro Talotta, the CEO of Telecom Italia Sparkle.
In this meeting, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi emphasized that this contract is the direct outcome of the agreements made during the visit of the President and the Communication Minister to Italy, and it has taken months of negotiations to arrive at this stage.
The ICT Deputy Minister underscored that: “The implementation of International PoP in Tehran introduces Iran as an international center for regional service provision; and instead of directing the communication transit route of regional countries to Europe, manages them in Tehran, something that will result in increasing quality and lower prices for international internet service providers.”
The TIC Managing Director stated that previously, regional nations had to use the European route for receiving communication, and emphasized that: “The implementation of the exchange center in Iran is the first step toward Iran’s plan for establishment of an international hub for the region.”
Stating that this contract guarantees the realization of this project, he highlighted that: “In the past, countries in the south of Iran had to use Oman’s and U.A.E.s’ PoP for communication transit and because of the very high expenses of the connection had to handle the majority of their data transfer in Europe; something which resulted in the decline of the content share of the region and its low quality, but through the establishment of international transfer center in Tehran, this route can decrease service provision expenses and increase quality; where the most focus will be on video services, and we hope that the opportunity for the growth of video services shall increase by the implementation of regional CDN’s in the middle-east.”
Azari-Jahromi stated that with the establishment of international PoP in Iran in the next contracts, we shall have the highest number of international CDN’s attracted to us to set up in this center, and said: “We anticipate that in the second day of this conference we will enter into negotiations with two of the highest ranking service providers in the world.”
The Communication Deputy Minister also reported of the latest developments regarding the four-sided transit contract of Iran-Europe which was signed five years ago between Oman, Russia, England, and Iran but never became operational, saying: “Sections of this contract were implemented in each of these four countries but because of international financial sanctions, the capability for taking advantage of this route was never realized; and right now, one of the topics under discussion at the sidelines of our main programs for the presence of major global telecommunication corporations, is the negotiating process for utilizing this route through ongoing marketing efforts.”
He emphasized that the Implementation of transit routes from Iran has improved global communication quality up to 40 millisecond; a route, which until now because of certain obstacles, the world had deprived itself of. Now, with the removal of these obstacles, East-Asian nations like China and India have announced their interest in using the Iran-Europe transit route, centered in Iran.”
The TIC Managing Director said that: “Currently, about 100 Terabytes of capacity is being handled via Suez Channel, when Iran-Europe transit route can handle about 10% of this capacity.”
In this ceremony, Alessandro Talotta mentioned that Telecom Italia Sparkle Company has set up data exchange centers in more than 100 locations around the globe, emphasizing that: “Being in Iran counts as the fourth time that Sparkle has been present in the Middle-East and Asia, and we hope that through this cooperation, we shall witness a significant increase both in volume of communication traffic and the quality of service-provision.”
Telecom Italia CEO also commented regarding Iran’s National Information Network, saying that: “National Information Networks can be one of the programs of the governments for development of their broad-band networks, which can be very beneficial for their people; but the important thing is that in implementing these networks and the provision of its services, the governments should adhere to open policies and establishing free competition simultaneously with enactment of regulations; resulting, in the end, in provision of satisfactory services with economic justification for the users.”