Iran is planning to further develop its infrastructure in order to become an internet transit hub between the east and west.

During the Iran Connect 2016 conference, Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran’s Minister of Communications announced that the country is looking forward to the new opportunities emerged from the lifting of sanctions in order to carry the internet traffic for the eastern and western countries. “With the advanced features provided by Iran, shorter and cheaper routes are available in order to provide internet traffic services,” said Vaezi at Iran Connect 2016. “Now that the unfair sanctions imposed on Iran have been lifted, we are in negotiations in this field,” he added.

Iran’s strategic location in the region and the low costs of network maintenance could actually lead the country to become a transcontinental transit route in the region. During the Iran Connect conference, Vaezi also announced that Iran’s tech and ICT sector will absorb 16 billion euros of investment in which one/fourth of this number will be provided by the private sector.

The country is also planning to provide 20 mb internet for 80% of the households and deliver broadband internet services for 90% of the rural and underserved areas of the country in the upcoming years. In the past 3 years, the government put a great deal of work in developing the internet infrastructure in the country. Iran’s internet bandwidth saw a 590% growth from 81.68 gigabit per second to 564 gigabit per second since President Rouhani’s administration took office. 4G/LTE connectivity have also been accessible in major cities of the country and mobile operators are now initiating the primary plans to provide the next generation of mobile internet to the users.

The government also launched the National Data Network recently which brings better security and faster load times for the local websites which go through this network, while also making the internet costs in the country more efficient.