Telecompaper - Iran's ICT ministry says broadband services will be available in almost every rural areas by the end of March 2020, Financial Tribune reported. Mehrdad Torabian, director of the ICT Ministry's office for Communication Services Development in Rural Areas, said people living in 63 percent of rural areas have access to landline/mobile telephony and broadband internet.

Telecom service penetration in rural areas has seen a two-fold jump in the past years, Torabian said. He put the figure at around 32 percent in September 2017, when President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected for a second term. He added that in 2017, close to 9 percent of villages were totally deprived of any sort of communication services. The figure is now down to 3 percent.

The latest data from the Communication Regulatory Authority show that currently, over 83 percent of rural areas in Iran have access to fixed line communication services, 51,200 out of the 61,700 villages in the country. CRA said more than 80 percent of Iranians have access to broadband.

The figure is equal to 66.1 million internet users in the country of 81 million people. An internet user is defined as a person aged over six, who has gone online at least once in three months. Over 10 million fixed line and 55 million mobile internet subscriptions are registered in Iran and 88.7 million SIM cards have been issued.