The head of the Regulatory and Radio Communications Organization says that the growth of the ICT sector of the GDP is decreasing from 35% to 10% and it is necessary to plan to stop this trend.
According to Iran digital economy annotation, Amir Mohammadzadeh Lajevardi, the head of the regulator, in a meeting held with the presence of managers of fixed and mobile operators about the need to change the Internet tariff and the obligations of the operators, reviewed some economic and tariff indicators and compared to the decrease in the growth of the share of ICT in the gross product. Internally expressed concern. He considered the increase of this share dependent on investment in this industry.
Lajevardi said that the amount of investment of mobile operators in 2016 was about 1300 billion dollars, but this number reached 500 million dollars last year. Also, the growth of the communication and information technology sector of the GDP is decreasing, so investment must be made to grow this number.
He emphasized that mobile internet tariffs have not changed since 1995 and fixed internet tariffs have not changed since 1996, and the operators have committed to fully spend the resources resulting from the recent increase in the development and updating of the network.
In response to the question of how there is a way that the change of tariffs does not become a problem for the field of communication, the head of the Radio Communications Regulatory Organization said: In the Regulatory Organization, we have started a way to formulate some tariffs. We have done this for electricity and space, optical fiber is completely exempt from tariffs, and I hope we will reach a formula for the rest of the tariffs so that the operators are not constantly involved in tariff increases.
In this meeting, managers of some operators explained their reasons for increasing internet tariffs.
Data consumption, more than the world average
Bijan Abbasi Arand, CEO of Irancell, said in this meeting that operators always have a plan for development, and that the network did not face problems during the Corona era, when consumption increased sharply, which shows that proper development has been done; However, due to the sharp increase in dollar costs, the ability of operators to invest has been greatly reduced.
Abbasi said: The capacity that was created and planned to be filled in 4 years, due to Corona, it was filled in 2 years, and although the operators have development plans; But due to the increase in network consumption, there is a need for more serious investment.
He announced that according to the conducted research, the amount of data consumption in mobile phones is 15 gigabytes per month on average in the world; But in Iran, each person consumes 18 gigabytes of internet per month, which is close to 19 gigabytes in Europe. Also, the amount of internet usage in Irancell network is higher than all the operators in which MTN has shares.
Hamid Behrouzi, the deputy CEO of Hamrahe aval, emphasized that development is a mandatory issue for operators, and said: In the past years, due to the constant prices, the electricity network did not develop and this industry faced challenges and must strive for this backwardness. . The same thing happens to operators.
He said: “Development should be proportional to the increase in consumption, and if this is not done, the quality will drop.” Increasing quality and development is also dependent on investment. Meanwhile, the operators have little profit at the end of the year.
Behrouzi added: “If we don’t invest, we will have to wait for a few years until it is announced that we will face a drop in internet speed in certain hours.”
At the same time, the deputy CEO of Mobile First emphasized that the income from the recent tariff increase will add up to 70 million dollars per year to the revenues of Mobile First, and this will gradually show its effect. At the same time, it is necessary to pay continuously for the development of the network.
Hossein Molazadeh, the CEO of Rightel, in a short speech, referring to the increase in wages on an annual basis, stated that if we consider this one indicator, the increase in tariffs should have been more than double.
He stated that due to the investment of Hamrah Aval and Irancell in their network, their annual profit is much lower than other industries.
Revenues compared to costs
Mohammad Ali Yousefizadeh, the CEO of Asiatech, also emphasized that the financial statements of Asiatech are published on the Kodal website, he reviewed some components such as electricity prices, space rent, and human labor wages since 2015 and emphasized that the tariff increase is 34%, even inflation is one It does not compensate for the last two years either.
Yousefizadeh added: I know that the consumer is unhappy with the increase in prices; But this increase means the development that is done in the field of optical fiber.
Also, the chairman of the board of directors of Shuttle announced that the RPU (revenue per user) of fixed operators has increased from 20 dollars in 2012 to 2 to 3 dollars this year, and because of this, the investment power of operators has decreased drastically.
Hassan Shanehsazzadeh considered the return on investment in the optical fiber network to be 7 to 9 years.
Iman Miri, the CEO of Hiweb, criticized the neglect of the fixed sector in the past and considered this issue to be the result of the short-term view of the Ministry of Communications in those periods and emphasized that now the Ministry of Communications is looking for investment and development of the fixed sector with a long-term view. For this reason, 0 to 30% of the cost of developing the fiber optic network has been assumed.
In response to those who criticize the quality of the Internet, Miri said that other goods that become more expensive on a daily basis will improve with the price change? Why is there such an expectation from the communication department? Even though there has been no development in this field for 5 years.
In this meeting, Reza Khalili, technical and network vice president of the Iran Telecommunication Company, said: “In 2015, we spent 25 billion tomans to supply batteries; But this year we will spend 400 billion tomans. This is despite the fact that the battery is born inside and does not cost any currency.
He also pointed to the maximum increase of 34% in the price of the Internet in the international consumption sector and the price of domestic data remaining constant, and announced that the cost paid by subscribers will grow by an average of 17%.
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