TEHRAN -- Iran’s Telecommunication Infrastructure Company and companies from Armenia and Qatar signed a tripartite agreement for transit of data from Persian Gulf to the Europe during a meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, IRNA reported.

The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the meeting of Iran’s Information and Telecommunication Technology (ICT) Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi and Armenian First Deputy Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies Hakob Arshakyan in Tehran.

During the meeting, Azari Jahromi pointed to ICT cooperation between the two countries during past years.

Cyber security, solving frequency disturbance in Iran-Armenia border and development of ICT products export and digital economy were discussed during the meeting.

Azari Jahromi announced that the two sides will sign an agreement in the field of ICT cooperation in his future trip to Armenia.

Iran and Armenia have already begun their cooperation in ICT and now they are waiting for other countries to join, Arshakyan said.

He highlighted safeguarding from cyber-attacks and ICT infrastructure as the two main fields in which the two countries can boost cooperation.

Iran as data transit hub

In June 2017, Iran offered services to India through several international Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) for transit of data.

Having seven IXPs with the potential to offer international Internet transit services to neighboring countries, Iran is seeking to become a data service hub in the region to improve revenue in the technology sector and reduce dependency on oil exports.

An IXP is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers exchange Internet traffic between their networks.

Iran is already providing its western neighbor Iraq with data services through an IXP center in Khuzestan Province, which operates as an Internet transit hub. The center enables Iraqis to connect to the World Wide Web using Iran’s communications infrastructure.

SB/MG