Post, Telegraph and Telephone Ministry
Posts, Telegraphs & Telephones Ministry has the task of creating
facilities for the public use of postal and telecommunication
services internally and internationally. Its principal functions
include policy making, planning for creation and expansion of postal
and telecommunications services, meeting obligations required by
international postal and telecommunication conventions.
The Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) and the Posts Company are
affiliated to the ministry.

Telephones the ministry launched an extensive expansion plan after
the revolution. The Telecommunications Company set up a Planning Council
in 1981 with the task of drawing up a long-term plan. The council
has several sub-committees, which study and propose expansion
projects. Upon being approved, the projects are executed by the
Planning and Project Control Department, which has separate sections
for telephone exchange centres, telecommunication centres,
construction, administration and supplies.

Since the revolution, the Telecommunications Company has reportedly:

• increased the number of installed telephone lines from 850,000 to
  4,623,372 in 1994;
• designed and set up 211 private automatic branch exchanges (PABX)
  in rural areas;
• set up and commissioned 367 electromechanical dialling (EMD)
  exchanges;
• commissioned 50 XP and EAX exchanges with capacity of 33,000
  lines;
• erected and commissioned electronic and PABX exchanges;
• installed automatic long-distance exchanges; linked 71 towns and
  cities to the international automatic telephone exchange, raising total to 92.
  A total of 137 countries may be dialled directly.

Digital Switches

The TCI decided to increase digital networks in 1986. One million
digital telephone were installed in four cities of Isfahan, Shiraz,
Tabriz and Mashad in the recent years.

Plans also provide for changing production of domestic factories
from analogous to digital equipment gradually. Priority will be
attached to microwave digital networks for inter-city links, because
the Iranian geographical characteristics, and population
concentrations in mountainous areas have limited possibility of
using optical fibres in the current phase of the plan. Optical
fibres will be used for distances no farther than 500 kilometres.
There are also studies under way for using ISDN, upon setting up a
few small exchanges in Tehran and some other cities. Mobile
telephones although were distributed in the recent years.

Telegraph services are offered in more than 1,800 offices throughout
Iran. After the revolution, S+5DX and TDM telegraph systems were
established at various parts of the country. There is one principal
telegram centre in Tehran. The service lacks automatic systems and
is very slow.

Telex service has 8,602, who are linked to two large and 10 small
centres.

Cable Production Projects

The Telecommunication Company has two related projects under way.

• Optical fibre is currently in use between Tehran and Karaj, and
  will be linking Tehran to Garmsar and Saveh, Bandar Abbas, Tabriz
  and Mashad and Karaj to Qazvin in the future. An optical fibre
  production plant was set up in Yazd by the TCI.
• Copper conductor cable production is the second project. A plant
  is being established also in Yazd with capacity to produce 1,250
  million metres of cable a year. Measures have been taken to acquire
  the technology and training required.
• Satellite n Phase 1: Fifty-one land antenna will be set up in 51
  rural areas in five provinces and five at centres of border
  provinces. Technical specifications have been prepared and contracts
  have been concluded. Intelsat will supply the transponders.
• Phase 2: Three satellites will be built and two will be launched
  into space, and the third will be kept in reserve on land. They
  would extend television, telephone, telex, tele-conference and data
  transfer services to the entire country. Technical specifications of
  these satellites are: weight 1,300 kilos, frequency used 11.14
  giga-Hz for controlling the satellite in emergency, power required
  1,800 watts, life span 10 years, telecommunications capacity 12,000
  telephone and four television channels.

The five land stations have antennae with 1.5-5.5 metres in
diameter, 135 primary and secondary stations, 27 zonal stations, 31
community stations and 1,374 rural stations.

The project includes building two satellite control stations and
land stations in five sizes.

Post Office The Posts Company has 242 central post offices which
supervise,11,164 employees in 709 urban and 932 rural post offices, 231 urban
post booths and 2,193 post office representative units. The company
provides many of the internationally available postal services.

Tehran with 67.8 million letters and parcels posted and 85.3 million
received ranked first in the country, followed by Khuzistan,
Khorassan and Eastern Azerbaijan provinces.

New Postal Services

The increase in the activities of the company is attributed in part
to the variety of services offered and the faster service. The
inter-city letter delivery has reportedly speeded up from the
average 126 hours in 1979 to five hours at present. In the year
past, the Posts Company extended its inter-city facsimile service to
100 towns and cities and established new services. These include
more efficient express delivery to domestic and foreign
destinations, collecting parcels from the origin, delivering money
orders and cheques, accepting cables by telephone, distributing
bills of telephone, electricity, water and natural gas rates,
accepting orders for payment of driving fines to the Traffic
Department.

Private Postal Services

Several relatively small private companies operate letters and
parcels delivery system domestically at costs higher than those
charged by the Posts Company. The international companies, DHL and
Federal Express have offices in Tehran which only accepts documents
for foreign destinations.