Government $1.6b predicted revenue from new operators not yet fulfilled

Prediction of this amount in the Budget, which is only a part of its billion dollars revenue from telecommunication and communication activities, was assumed when it was planned that Third Operator would release its sim cards last summer.
ICT Ministry selected Iranian-foreign consortium Tamin Etisalat as Third Operator winner but it was dismissed from the project for failure to fulfill its obligations.
The Third Operator’s fate has not yet been sealed, however, but authorities believe that Tamin Telecom, a Social Security Organization affiliate, has accepted Third Operator provisions without a foreign partner and by paying license fee has received the Third Operator executive warrantee paper.
There are 5 national and provincial operators in the country, namely: MCI, Taliya, MTN-IranCell, Kish and Espadan, along with 30 governmental and 6 private companies as landline operators.
So far 46 million sim cards have been sold by mobile phone operators and the current mobile phone penetration rate stands at above 60%.
There are also 25 million landline subscribers in the country and landline penetration rate is 33%.
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