TEHRAN – The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plans to provide over 1,000 gigabits per second of bandwidth for Iranian messaging applications by the next two weeks, Mehr reported on Sunday.

“The Iranian messaging apps can benefit from over 1,000 gigabits per second of added bandwidth, which is double the total bandwidth of foreign social networks in the country,” the managing director of Telecommunication Infrastructure Company Hamid Fattahi announced on his Twitter account.

He said that the ICT Ministry used the capacity of the National Information Network for bandwidth.

“However, many messaging applications have not used their previous bandwidth capacity completely,” he lamented.

The replacement of Telegram, as the most popular messaging app in Iran, with Iranian messaging applications has turned into a challenge on the national level.

Telegram, with 40 million subscribers in Iran, was on top list of messaging applications in the country. It was banned in the country on April 30. Hundreds of people and companies in Iran used the app for their marketing and sales.

The alternatives for Telegram is a number of Iranian messaging applications introduced during recent months.

Up to now, five messaging applications have been approved by the National Center for Cyberspace, an organization established by the Supreme Cyberspace Council.

Soroush, Gap, iGap, BisPhone Plus and Wispi are the applications developed by Iranian experts and are supported by the center.

Domestic messaging applications eye officials for further support to help them to convince subscribers to move to another application.

SB/MQ/MG