Policy Statement
by
Mr. Javad Hamed Rouhbakhsh
Director General of Telecommunications
Islamic Republic of Iran

Wednesday, 20 March 2002

Mr. Chairman
Excellencies
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies & Gentlemen

I have the pleasure to extend the warmest appreciation of my own and also on behalf of the Delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the ITU, in particular, to Mr. Touré, Director of BDT, and also to the Government and people of the Republic of Turkey for excellent planning, organizing and convening of this important conference in this beautiful and historical city of Istanbul.

I sincerely hope that with the close cooperation of all distinguished delegates and participants to this august meeting as well as the deliberations, the conference will achieve all its objectives.

The final decade of twentieth century has witnessed advances in communication capacities. The ever-accelerating pace of change has given rise to new perceptions in every domain of life.

It is absolutely essential, therefore, to first comprehend and recognize the necessities of this new age, and then to move towards adaptation. We knew very well that we should not allow the existing gap to broaden further. We understood that, as much as this devastating pace of change represents a challenge, it also offers opportunities for rapid development.

The advent of technology relies, more than anything else, on power of the brain and the wizardry of the youth. In a country where half the population is young, dynamic and well-educated, we enjoy a vast and valuable resource. Given proper conditions, this gigantic resource can constitute one of the largest pools for both production and consumption of new technologies.

Bearing this in mind, we have commenced a fresh and thorough re-examination of our policies and strategies to bring them into accord with the requirements of new economy. To begin with, the outdated PTT insignia is out. The Ministry is now nicknamed ICT.

This, of course, is not a mere change of title. It is a new identity designed and defined to empower us to deal with information aspects of communication along with and in addition to our traditional; responsibilities. It is also aimed at accentuating the bear necessity of acquiring capabilities in modern technologies associated with advanced means of telecommunications; not solely as a user, but a provider as well.

As for telecommunications, our aim is to restrict our role to a regulatory body shading away, gradually, from actual implementation and execution. Preparatory work has been underway with participation of experts from ITU and other UN agencies for this purpose and it is expected to be concluded near future. With its finalization and approval, the ICT ministry would serve as the sole regulatory authority to administer issuance of licenses and supervise the services offered by operators.

The Telecommunication Company of Iran, the state owned incumbent carrier will have to yield its exclusivity. Its constitutional Charter, which dates back several decades, ordains full exclusivity in the domains of telephony. Against enormous transformation that communication systems have passed through, such monopoly can hardly be sustained. Rather than abandoning this huge source of experience and capability and pushing towards hasty privatization we have opted for opening the market to private participation on national, regional and global basis and hence build up competition. This requires, inter alia:

• A sound, competition based regulatory system with sufficient safeguards to ensure fair-play for all participants,

• Supervision of the tariff in a manner that would preserve the interests of the consumer and secure quality service.

To respond to the ever-increasing demand and to narrow down the Digital Divide, our objectives are, by the end of 2004, to provide access to basic telecommunication facilities to all villages with more than 100 inhabitants. This would correspond to an increase of teledensity of fixed lines from current %15 to %30. As for the mobile teledensity the current 1.5 millions mobile users will be increased to 10 millions in that period. With respect to the Internet the current one million users will be increased to 15 millions by the end of 2004. Ambitious as it seems, these objectives are essential in order to ensure sustained and reliable movement towards a truly global information society.

Recognizing that Internet, in combination with other ICTs, has the potential of providing a wide range of benefits to a huge and geographically dispersed global population and to offer unprecedented opportunity to the public. To take advantage of this technology, we need to move rapidly. This requires, above all, introduction and establishment of the internet culture. Question of unhealthy content, in a society with deep religious sentiments and high moral values, has been a disturbingly difficult issue. But a consensus is emerged asserting that Internet’s beneficial utility overrides its limited expressions of violence and profanity.

In a nutshell, we intend to embark on a substantial program of reform. The purpose is to create and enhance export capabilities in information and communication technology and services. To achieve this we aim to rejuvenate the private sector and promote domestic private investment (DPI) and foreign direct investment (FDI).

I conclude, Mr. Chairman, by hoping that the efforts we invest in this important Conference, together with the discussions and deliberations to follow, will succeed not only in firming up tangible cooperative agreements, but also the intangibles, such as further enhancing the spirit of unity and understanding among the ITU Member States.

I thank you for your attention.