| Summary: | Improved IM/IT1 is a major policy priority of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In May 1995, President Rafsanjani spoke in Boum-e-Hen of the need for Iran to invest in telecommunications infrastructure. His specific subject was satellite technology. He noted that “Iran must enable the exposure of its culture through satellite signals” and he proposed “the expansion of satellite telecommunications throughout the country”. Even as he spoke, a government review of national telecoms policy was underway. In January 1995, the Iran Business Monitor reported that detailed plans for increased investment in telecoms had been developed “after two years of studies by Iran’s High Council on Information Technology (Informatics)”. The Minister of Post, Telegraph, and Telephone gave details of these plans the following November when he said that the government would increase its investment in telecoms from Rials 500 billion in the first five-year plan period (1989-1994) to Rials 1000 billion in the second plan (1995-2000). Top priorities for new investment are to include software R&D, export promotion, and network expansion, as well as further extension of the national telephone system. Iran already has one of the most developed telephone infrastructures in Asia. In May 1995, the Deputy Chairman of TCI noted that there were 5.5 million telephone numbers in the country and that almost 5.0 million more were planned by the end of the second plan period. The Iranian people-to-telephone ratio of 13.2 compares with ratios of 10.0 in Brazil, 13.5 in Thailand, 20.8 in Egypt, 22.4 in China, 38.6 in the Philippines, 47.7 in Indonesia, 56.1 in Pakistan, and 77.6 in India.
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