The Communications Minister of Iran has announced that the country’s international bandwidth capacity is due to be increased to 100Gbps by 4 December 2013, Fars News reports. According to the article, the project is already underway, with the country adding 10Gbps to its existing 72Gbps capacity.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Iran is connected to its neighbours in the Persian Gulf via the Kuwait-Iran and UAE-Iran undersea fibre-optic cable systems. In September 2013 the long-delayed Europe Persia Express Gateway (EPEG) fibre-optic system finally went live, connecting western Europe to the Middle East. The cable originates in Frankfurt, Germany and traverses eastern Europe, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, before connecting to Muscat in Oman. The total length of the EPEG cable is around 10,000km, including roughly 9,500km of terrestrial cable.