Iran To Launch Indigenous Version Of Internet
7/5/2011 4:22
(RTTNews) - Iran is to have its own version of the Internet which is scheduled for launch in August, the country's Communications Minister was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency on Monday.
Reza Taqipour told IRNA that the indigenous Internet Service Provider (ISP) will offer high-speed eight mb (megabytes) broadband connectivity for domestic users in the start-up phase. This will be gradually be upgraded to 20 mbps for faster downloads.
Even though authorities hail this as a novel idea which could drastically slash subscription costs and benefit ordinary Iranians, critics though believe it is part of a well-crafted plan to keep tabs on the country's netizens. Also, the Iranian government could well be planning to monitor social networking sites as well as micro-blogging site, twitter, to prevent a repetition of the "Arab Spring" in the Shia Muslim contry.
Besides, Iranian technocrats are pressing ahead with plans to come up with the country's own web browser next year. Modeled on the lines of Yahoo, the search engine will be christened "Ya Haq."
Currently, Internet users in Iran do not have access to several sites which are termed "immoralities"-- an euphemism for pornographic sites-- by the country's rulers. Similar restrictions are in place for Iranian Opposition websites as well as those of almost all leading Western media organizations.
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