Azernews.Az

Iran plans to boost the capacity of country's national internet (intranet) up to 1,200 gigabyte per second by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014), Managing director of Iran's Telecommunication Infrastructure Company Mahmoud Khosravi said.

The country's intranet capacity currently stands at 550-gigabyte per second, the ISNA News Agency reported.

"The international bandwidth is also expected to reach 200 Gbps by the end of the current year," he said, adding that the current figure is 110 Gbps.

He went on to say that the country's VOIP system currently has the capacity to connect 20,000 calls simultaneously.

Iran has one of the biggest Internet filters of any country in the world, preventing normal Iranians from accessing countless sites on the official grounds they are offensive or criminal.

Sites expressing views considered anti-government are also routinely blocked.

Iranians commonly overcome the government filter by using virtual private network (VPN) software that makes the computer appear as if it is based in another country.

The report however concluded that only 21 per cent of Iranians have access to the Internet, ranking it 111th in the world, behind countries like Tuvalu and Jordan.