Alireza Ghalambor Dezfouli referred to Irancell full network coverage nationwide and all along the Persian Gulf and said: While Irancell License Agreement requires it to cover 9,000 kilometers of the roads in Contractual Year 7, we managed to cover 21,515 kilometers of the roads by 21 October 2012.

According to Irancell Public Relations, in a press conference held on the occasion of the sixth 

anniversary of the commercial launch of the network of Irancell, Irancell CEO said that 82% of the Iranian population has been covered by Irancell network and added:  More than 2200 cities and townships and more than 24,000 villages are covered by Irancell Network with a 57% CAGR.

Dezfouli added: More than 21,000 kilometers of the main roads are covered with 61% CAGR. CAGR for the population coverage is 13%. As the population coverage grows, every single percent of the population coverage expansion may require the amount of investment which was initially required for 5 to 10 percent of the network coverage.

He further added: Irancell has established and rolled out more than 16,000 sites with the CAGR of 38% during this period through creating the capacity for 104,000 TRXs nationwide.

According to Mr. Dezfouli, Irancell has completed all the core projects and primary switch projects in 10 primary switch centers and completed the secondary switch projects in all the provinces to have 47 secondary switches in 31 provinces. 

While mentioning that Irancell population coverage has reached 82%, he added: “Based on the License Agreement, the rate of call drop should be 1.5% before 22 in October 2012, but currently the average of call drop is 0.79%”.  

In a report on Irancell SIM cards international roaming, Mr. Dezfouli mentioned that the number of international roaming partners of Irancell for postpaid, prepaid and data SIM cards has, compared to the previous year, reached 394 (38% growth), 130 (51% growth), 267 (100% growth), respectively.

Referring to the option provided for Irancell subscribes to make call in some of international flights via Irancell SIM cards, he pointed out: “It is also possible to use recharge cards of certain foreign operators for recharging Irancell SIM cards".

109% Increase in Data Traffic

Mr. Dezfouli added that data traffic across the world in 2015 is estimated to be equal to the total amount of data traffic used up to the year 2010. This fact shows that the operators should pay much more attention to data services.

According to him, 100% of Irancell network is under GPRS coverage, with 98% of which under EDGE coverage. The remaining 2% reflects the sparsely populated areas and roads which normally do not need high speed GPRS.

He went on to say that: “Currently the maximum speed of Irancell SIM cards using 2.75G technology is 220 kbps but the average speed among subscribes is 60 kbps.

The usage of traffic in Oct. 2012 compared to the previous year has increased 109% which shows that Irancell subscribes, like other mobile subscribes across the world, tend to use more data. It is worth mentioning that the data usage in Oct. 2012 has increased 73% compared to Oct 2011.

Opening regional call centers and expanding points of distribution

Mr. Dezfouli said that currently 680 employees are working in Irancell call center and added: 

“Since last year Irancell has focused on opening regional call centers. Currently the call centers in Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz and Mashhad are operational and now we are determined to establish in some other areas call centers with regional dialects for the ease of the local people”.

Providing IVR (interactive voice responses) service based on integrated CRM (customer relations management) is one of the measures taken in the call center field, according to him.

Pointing out that currently Irancell has more than 2,630,000 points of distribution across the country (65% of which electronic), Mr. Dezfouli further added: “Our points of distribution include 25,700 ATMs, 560 web kiosks, more than 400,000 dealers, more than 10,500 sale and after-sale agents and 200,000 POS terminals”.

He also noted that Irancell recharge vouchers are now provided through more channels such as Internet, mobile phone, mobile banking, banking applications and IVR.

93% Growth in Irancell WiMAX Subscriber Base

Pointing out that the 93% growth in Irancell WiMAX subscriber base compared to last year is explained by 337,000 subscribers with 768 WiMAX dealers in the provinces under coverage and 727 sites in 34 cities of 7 provinces, Mr. Dezfouli said:  “The traffic used by WiMAX subscribers has shown 80% growth last year”.

Internet access, VPN for the companies and organizations, VoIP, video call on WiMAX platform as well as WiMAX Hot Spot (pending finalization by the Communications Regulatory Authority) constitute Irancell new WiMAX services.

He also announced that Irancell provides the needed infrastructure for WiMAX-based VPN services to more than 20 banks as well as financial institutes and companies amounting to 734 points across the country.

Iranian Government earned IRR 81.000 billion from Irancell Project

Mr. Dezfouli pointed out the maximum use of the Iranian local content and said: Currently more than 300 manufacturing, service and industrial companies are cooperating with Irancell in different fields such as hardware, software, technical and engineering and commercial services in line with implementation of the Local Content Act.

He referred to 1,870 jobs directly created by Irancell and said: Irancell managed to create more than 40,000 jobs both directly and indirectly.

Mr. Dezfouli stated that the government direct and indirect revenues generated by Irancell over the past 6 years is IRR 81,000 billion from which IRR 5,600 billion has been paid directly to the government.

He mentioned realization of the foreign investment, cooperation with local and international companies, transfer of knowledge and technical training of the human resources, materialization of the penetration rate beyond the fourth and fifth development plans projection, bringing innovation, dynamism and vivacity to the mobile phone market, materialization of the 2.75 G technology in Iran, direct and indirect job creation for more than 40,000, contributing to minimize government involvement while increasing its revenues, using capacities of more than 300 local companies, outstanding SIM card price reduction and more than USD 1.2 billion foreign investment are among achievements of Irancell, as one of the successful projects of the Article 44 of the Constitution. 

Mr. Dezfouli added: All Irancell subscribers are provided with access to GPRS to connect to Internet. 16 million of the mentioned subscribers are high usage subscribers of GPRS while WiMAX subscribers are considered professional users of Internet access services.