The Minister of Information and Communications Technology Seyed Sattar Hashemi said on Saturday that stable power supply is a prerequisite for improving the quality of communications services.
He also called for an agreement with the Ministry of Energy
to remove communications sites from the electricity outage priority list.
“Purchasing electricity services had not produced
satisfactory results and the procurement of batteries for the communications
network should proceed more rapidly” he added at the meeting of the National
Information Network Steering Council.
During the meeting, the implementation of the council's
previous resolutions concerning the provision of servers for domestic messaging
platforms, the procurement of batteries and equipment required for the
communications network, and the use of the 700 MHz and 800 MHz frequency bands were
reviewed.
Decisions were made regarding the continuation of their
implementation.
"All measures must have an implementation timetable,
progress reports, evaluation indicators, and a clear plan for removing
obstacles so that it is possible to assess the results and the degree to which
the resolutions have been implemented,” the minister noted.
Hashemi urged the meetings to move beyond raising issues, and
stated, "If the implementation of any matter is not feasible, the reasons
for this should be clearly stated."
Regarding the provision of resources needed to develop the
infrastructure of domestic messaging platforms, Hashemi added: "Any method
of financing must have a defined time horizon, and an initial estimate should
be provided for when it is expected to be realized."
The ICT Minister also stressed the issue of traffic tariffs
for the National Information Network, saying, “A specific timeline should be
established for pursuing this matter so that, once the deadline has passed, the
measures taken, the results achieved, and, if the objective has not been met,
the existing obstacles can be identified precisely."
He reiterated that improving the quality of communications
services is the natural expectation of the public, the government, and the
operators.
"Support for development programs and capacity expansion
will only be provided when they lead to an improvement in the quality of
communications services."
He referred to the importance of ensuring the power supply
for communications sites and noted: “Given last year's experience, the issue of
battery procurement will this year be followed more closely by the public and
members of Parliament.
“It is expected that the impact of the operators' measures to
improve the quality of public access to communications services will be clearly
noticeable."
He said it was necessary to reach an agreement with the
Ministry of Energy so that, in return for the measures taken to increase the
resilience of the communications network, communications sites are removed from
the priority list for power outages.
“Otherwise, installing smart equipment without ensuring a
stable power supply will not produce the desired results."
Regarding the procurement of batteries required for the
communications network, he noted: "The report presented on purchasing
electricity services shows that this method has not achieved the desired
results in Razavi Khorasan Province, and continuing it is not economically
justified.”
“Therefore, implementing it in other provinces will also not
be feasible,” said the ICT Minister.