Wednesday, 6 October Iran turn has changed the life style of the people and has resulted in significant savings and conservation of the environment. I am pleased to report that the trend towards privatiza-tion backbone and 80,000 kilometers in the cities through-out the country. In addition, the telecommunication transmission backbone benefits from 3 international satellite gateways. Space science and technology has been considered as a high priority technical area in the country and several satellite-related projects are in the process of design and manufacturing by the high-level university stu-dents is continuing rapidly. Telecommunication Company of Iran and all of its 30 subsidiary provincial telecommu-nication companies have been privatized. In the area of mobile communications, we now have 5 mobile opera-tors with a penetration rate of more than 72 percent. and professors to be manufactured by the coop-eration with the local industry. The mobile market is open to the private and foreign investment and still there is a high potential for more mobile subscribers throughout the country. Broadband wired access (ADSL) and broadband wire-less It is our policy to further expand the broadband trans-mission networks offering integrated voice, data, and video services using the state-of-the art technologies. In order to implement the WSIS action plans, several projects have started such as an electronic portal for the provision of all government services. Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken a major step towards bridging the digital divide by concentrating on provision of ICT services to rural areas of the country. Today, more than 50 percent of the villages across the country are di-rectly access services such as WiMax have been well received by the public and there is still an interesting market for future investment. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome foreign investors to consider this highly interesting and developing market for indi-vidual or joint investment. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, we have great respect and enthusiasm for the activities of the regional and interna-tional connected and the remaining ones are indirectly telecommunication organizations such as APT and facilitated to offer banking and Internet services as well as other telecommunications services through 10,000 rural ICT offices. We have gained a lot of experience in providing cost-effective rural communications and will be happy to share it with other countries. The trend towards provision of the ICT services by the private sector is increasing rapidly and many of the ex-isting ITU. We have taken responsibilities in the study groups and other activities of both organizations and have host-ed a number of important events and activities in Iran and plan to continue further in the future. We have also designated one of our experienced and well qualified senior engineers as a candidate for the RRB for whom we appreciate your support and encouragement. IT services are now provided by the private and non-governmental companies. Furthermore, we have connected more than 17000 schools throughout the country to the national internet network and are plan-ning Finally, we hope that this very important conference will be successful in achieving the objectives of the ITU by providing resources and mechanisms for cooperation be-tween to increase this number to more than 100,000 in the next 3 years. Many schools and universities pro-vide developed and developing countries of the world electronic learning and virtual education for the and in particular by facilitating joint research projects and activities between countries. I ask Almighty God to bestow His blessings and mercy to all of us. interested individuals. In recent years, we have observed a very high increase in provision of electronic services by banks, payment of utilities, sales of different products, etc. which, in 109