{"id":547407,"date":"2005-11-30T10:25:16","date_gmt":"2005-11-30T10:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/547407-mtn-to-roll-out-new-network-in-iran.html"},"modified":"2005-11-30T10:25:16","modified_gmt":"2005-11-30T10:25:16","slug":"mtn-to-roll-out-new-network-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/547407-mtn-to-roll-out-new-network-in-iran.html","title":{"rendered":"MTN to roll out new network in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN is about to begin rolling out its latest network after Iran’s communications and information technology minister formally issued a cellular licence to IranCell. <\/font><\/p>\n

MTN has a 49% stake in the new Iranian operator, though it paid the \u20ac300m licence fee in full without contribution from its local partners. <\/font><\/p>\n

MTN CEO Phuthuma Nhleko said on Tuesday that the company would build an extensive network infrastructure. <\/font><\/p>\n

"We’re pleased to have been invited to take up the 49% stake in IranCell. <\/font><\/p>\n

"We have nine months to launch and intend to embrace this opportunity," Nhleko said. <\/font><\/p>\n

MTN has pledged another \u20ac150m towards infrastructure, and the firm’s finance director, Rob Nisbet, predicts a peak funding requirement of $1,5bn within three years. <\/font><\/p>\n

This is the first private cellular licence to be issued in Iran, and it is renewable after 15 years. <\/font><\/p>\n

The local partner in IranCell is the Iran Electronics Development Company, part-owned by the defence ministry. IranCell will compete with the current operator, state-owned TCI. <\/font><\/p>\n

Nhleko was positive about MTN’s entry into Iran. With Iran’s cellular penetration standing at 10%, he believes there is significant growth potential and expects rapid subscriber growth. <\/font><\/p>\n

Iran’s population is estimated at 69-million, with a per capita gross domestic product of $2,300. <\/font><\/p>\n

Announcing MTN’s results last week, Nhleko said it was not ideal to hold only a minority interest in any operation, but it was a starting "creep up", and over time as other shareholders want to sell, hopefully we can buy". <\/font><\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN is about to begin rolling out its latest network after Iran’s communications and information technology minister formally issued a cellular licence to IranCell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}