Implementation phases

The NIN has been developed in three phases, two of which were launched during Rouhani’s first term. Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, then deputy minister of communications, stated on February 7, 2017, that the third phase was to begin on May 17, 2017, International Telecommunications Day. However on April 3, 2017, then Minister of Communications Mahmoud Vaezi informed the Mehr News Agency of a delay in the launch. “Considering the upcoming elections in the country, the third and final phase of the National Information Network will be launched after the elections,” he told Mehr.”

Iranian officials have defined the goals of the first two phases of the NIN as follows:

First Phase:

• Access to E-Government31 services, video services inside the country and a variety of online financial services.
• Offer bandwidth and higher speed for land and mobile lines, and access to content and services inside the country.
• Increase network quality (i.e. the reduction of disruptions).
• Reduce final price of an internet connection for consumers.

Second Phase:

• Increase the number of internal data exchange traffic centers (iXP) from four to seven.
• Increase Iran’s data transfer network from four terabits per second to 10 per second.
• Launch a “data mining” system to monitor viruses in the network.32
• Increase the average internet access speed in third generation mobile phones (3G) to approximately 2MB; in the fourth generation of mobile phones (4G) to approximately 12 MB per second; and in ADSL networks to approximately 5 MB per second.
• Require all providers of fixed and mobile internet to separate their rates for domestic and international rates. The rates for domestic traffic will be calculated at 50% of the international traffic bandwidth.

These goals are discussed in more detail in the following sections.