
Telecommunication in Iran
The development of telecommunications in Iran is roughly equivalent to the average of the European Union. Under the country code +98, there were a total of 156.72 million connections in 2020. Among them were 127.62 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.5 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 197,804 webhosts, Iran is below the world's average by population.
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Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 9.8 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Iran ranked 145th in an international comparison. The upload rate of only 1.3 Mbit/second was significantly lower (172nd place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 44th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Iran comes 80th with a download speed of 22.42 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 9 Mbit was only enough for 88th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in Iran from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in Iran 2000 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | Iran Total | Iran percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 70.65 m | 84.11 % | 379.48 m | 84.74 % |
Broadband users | 9.56 m | 11.39 % | 163.72 m | 36.56 % |
Landlines | 29.09 m | 34.64 % | 160.15 m | 35.76 % |
Mobile cellulars | 127.62 m | 151.95 % | 540.56 m | 120.71 % |