Iran: Communication#

Telephones - fixed linestotal subscriptions: 30,418,973
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 37 (July 2015 est.)
Telephones - mobile cellulartotal: 74.219 million
subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 91 (July 2015 est.)
Telephone systemgeneral assessment: currently being modernized and expanded with the goal of not only improving the efficiency and increasing the volume of the urban service but also bringing telephone service to several thousand villages not presently connected
domestic: heavy investment by Iran's state-owned telecom company has greatly improved and expanded both the fixed-line and mobile cellular networks; a huge percentage of the cell phones in the market have been smuggled into the country
international: country code - 98; submarine fiber-optic cable to UAE with access to Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG); Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic line runs from Azerbaijan through the northern portion of Iran to Turkmenistan with expansion to Georgia and (2015)
Broadcast mediastate-run broadcast media with no private, independent broadcasters; Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state-run TV broadcaster, operates 5 nationwide channels, a news channel, about 30 provincial channels, and several international channe (2009)
Internet country code.ir
Internet userstotal: 36.07 million
percent of population: 44.1% (July 2015 est.)