MTN Irancell has been granted a nationwide TD-LTE licence at a ceremony that also saw the Iranian telco agree to implement mobile number portability (MNP).
Irancell already has a WiMAX licence covering six provinces; its newly-issued TD-LTE licence allows it to roll out fixed wireless broadband across the country.
The telco received its new licence almost exactly one year after it was also granted 3G WCDMA and LTE FDD licences. Since then, it says it has deployed 6,000 3G/LTE base stations.
"At present, we have 12.5 million 3G/LTE data services subscribers, 0.5 million WiMAX subscribers and the rest of our subscribers are using 2G data services," said Alireza Ghalambor Dezfouli, CEO of Irancell, in a statement on Monday.
Irancell received its TD-LTE licence the same day it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that paves the way for MNP in Iran.
"[MNP] has been one of the oldest wishes sought by all the subscribers," noted Dezfouli.
"MNP will cause heightened competition among the operators," added Ali Asghar Amidian, head of Iran’s Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA).
He said operators are required to begin working on MNP no later than 11 February 2016, the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. MNP is expected to reach the operational stage in 10 months time.
