Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 22
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Some 6.934 million Iranian internet users were connected to the internet via dial-up modems by the end of last solar year(ended on march 21), which includes 9.23 per cent of total internet users in the country, ISNA news agency reported on Nov. 22.
For the being time dial-up connection ranks third among internet connection methods in Iran, while during the Iranian calendar year ended March 21, 2009, dial-up connection was the most popular method among users and some 6.782 million connected up this way.
According to the Internet Penetration Management Portal which is part of Iran's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, the number of Internet users by the end of the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 21) reached 45.884 million.
The figure indicates the Internet penetration rate of the country stood at 61.06 per cent by the end of the last Iranian calendar year.
About 30.11 per cent of internet users in Iran (22.629 million) have used GPRS connection to access the Internet over the same period.
The rate of Optic connectors, Wimax connection users and Adsl connection users in Iran stood at 8.13, 2.7 and 10.89 per cent respectively by the end of the last calendar year.
The Iranian authorities banned Facebook and Twitter in the summer of 2009 when ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election victory sparking off massive protests that gained momentum with the help of organisers using social media.
Alongside Facebook, Iran has blocked access to many websites including YouTube.
Most users have found ways to evade the state censors and get access to all sites via proxy tunnels and channels.