Telephones - mobile cellular:
265,000 (August 1998)
Telephone system:
general assessment: inadequate but currently being modernized and
expanded with the goal of not only improving the efficiency and
increasing the volume of the urban service but also bringing
telephone service to several thousand villages, not presently
connected
domestic: as a result of heavy investing in the telephone system
since 1994, the number of long-distance channels in the microwave
radio relay trunk has grown substantially; many villages have been
brought into the net; the number of main lines in the urban systems
has approximately doubled; and thousands of mobile cellular
subscribers are being served; moreover, the technical level of the
system has been raised by the installation of thousands of digital
switches
international: HF radio and microwave radio relay to Turkey,
Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Syria, Kuwait,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; submarine fiber-optic cable to UAE with
access to Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG);
Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic line runs from Azerbaijan
through the northern portion of Iran to Turkmenistan with expansion
to Georgia and Azerbaijan; satellite earth stations - 9 Intelsat and
4 Inmarsat
Radio broadcast stations:
AM 72, FM 5, shortwave 5 (1998)
Radios:
17 million (1997)
Television broadcast stations:
28 (plus 450 low-power repeaters) (1997)
Televisions:
4.61 million (1997)
Internet country code:
.ir
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
100 (2002)
Internet users:
1.326 million (2002 est.)
Transportation Iran