GENEVA — The Iranian government remains uncertain of whether it will order its own national telecommunications satellite but fully intends to liberalize the nation’s satellite services market and permit direct satellite access by private companies, according to Iranian government and industry officials.
The country’s access to satellite ground-terminal technology is limited by a U.S. embargo on certain gear, but Iranian and other satellite industry officials say privately that these barriers are relatively easy to skirt through the use of intermediary companies in Asia and Europe that take delivery of the goods and then quietly ship them to Iran.
The result, the officials say, is a satellite-services sector that is growing despite the U.S. embargo and despite Tehran’s arbitrary still-heavy regulatory regime and the monopoly of the government-owned Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI).
Ertebatat Faragostar Co. of Tehran is an example. The privately owned company’s chief executive, Ali Enteshariun, said here Oct. 13 during the Telecom World 2003 exhibition that his business has been hampered as much by the lack of clear cut regulations in Iran as by the TCI monopoly.
"People use these systems despite the lack of regulations," Enteshariun said. "We estimate that there is an immediate demand for more than 5,000 [satellite] terminals in Iran — by oil companies for their remote sites, by banks and so on. What we need is a clear set of rules and the government is about to produce regulations that promise to open things up. The market is there."
Enteshariun said the government this summer partially deregulated the market to provide satellite-delivered communications to Iran’s 16,000 banks, only 1,000 of which are connected. TCI, he said, is equipped with about 500 satellite terminals, most of them using old technology that needs to be replaced.
Enteshariun said his company is one of several in Iran that provide satellite links to businesses and government agencies. He uses access to satellite capacity from New Skies Satellites NV of The Hague, Netherlands, and from Eutelsat S.A. of Paris.
The London-based Global VSAT Forum, which promotes the use of satellite services and is active in working with developing nations’ governments to increase private-sector involvement, held its "Middle East Satellite Summit" in Tehran in early October to coincide with the Iran Telecom Exhibition. VSAT stands for very small aperture terminal, a piece of satellite ground equipment used to deliver data transmission services primarily to business and government customers.
The forum’s secretary-general, David Hartshorn, said the meeting showed "the incredible dynamism of the Middle Eastern and Iranian markets. Things are moving forward."
Martin Jarrold, head of the VSAT forum’s international program development, said that in Africa, South America and Asia, governments that have long resisted private-sector participation in satellite services are now embracing privatization as a key to growth.
The forum estimates that in 2003, 10 percent of all broadband communications traffic will be carried by satellite. Communication Systems Ltd. (Comsys) of St. Albans, England, reports in its annual survey, "The VSAT Report 2003," on satellite ground-terminal sales to businesses and consumers, that Africa and the Middle East are among the world’s most active markets in terms of rising demand.
Nasrollah Jahangard, special envoy of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami for information and communications technology, told the forum that the government’s current reform objectives "include liberalization of the satellite services market. [The] private sector will get licenses to enable increased use of satellites," Jahangard said, according to a prepared summary of his remarks.
Ali Akbar Moussavi Khoeini, vice president of the Communications Committee of Iran’s parliament, or Majlis, said the Tehran government’s National Development Plan is aimed in part at breaking TCI’s monopoly.
The long-debated Iranian satellite program is another matter. In the mid-1990s, Alcatel Space of Paris thought it had won an international competition to provide Iran’s Zoreh satellite system, but the project was scuttled. More recently, a Russian satellite offer was rejected as too expensive.
One Iranian government official said Iran eventually will have its own satellite system.
An industry official said the government appears favorable to such a project but added that "in Iran, these things take a long time. I was one of those who fought against the earlier satellite project because it was not worth the cost. But a less-expensive solution could be acceptable."
