Iranian Mobile Operators Coverage – MCI Still the Dominant Operator
Mobile operators’ coverage in urban regions and countrysides of Iran is officially released. Iran’s first mobile operator, Hamrah-e Aval (MCI) is still the most reliable network in the country by covering 92 percent of the country’s population.
Latest statistics show that MCI and Irancell have a penetration rate of 53.71 and 38.58 percent respectively. MCI’s network is distributed in over 31,568 kilometers which is 88 percent of the country’s major roads. The operator is also covering 77 percent of the country’s minor roads which is 34,591 kilometers.
Iran’s second largest mobile operator, Irancell is also covering 32,158 kilometers of major and minor roads in the country which is 35.34 percent of the country’s roads.
The “Population Coverage” index shows that MCI and Irancell are covering 94.2 and 85.68 percent respectively of the country’s population. MCI’s network covers 1244 cities and 44273 villages where for Irancell, the operator covers 1196 cities and 1171 villages.
Hamrah-e Aval (MCI) recently announced that the company is increasing its network capacity to insure that its users won’t encounter any problems within the network during the Nowruz holidays.
MCI has increased its fixed-location transceivers and has added 62 portable cell sites in the popular travel destinations, touristic areas, busy roads and even some villages in Iran to provide sufficient bandwidth within each cell site. The mobile operator has added new sites to the northern provinces, Razavi Khorasan, Fars, Isfahan and Hormozgan.
MCI also announced that up until now more than 6,600 cell sites have been established to provide 3G services in 420 cities and 100 villages in Iran. According to MCI, mobile internet data usage increased by 40 percent in the past two months. MCI is currently in talks with foreign investors to further expand its developments in the new Persian year.
It is quite common along Iranians to text their family and friends around the new Persian year to wish them a happy Nowruz. As 3G and 4G internet becomes more accessible to users even in the remote areas of the country, more people are now using messaging apps to send their wishes via text, audio or video.