Telegram Call runs well in Iran finally

Telegram Finally Activated Its Voice Call Feature for Its Biggest Market

By MohammadReza Azali - Apr 15, 2017

Telegram finally activated its voice call feature in Iran. This feature might put an end to Telegram or keep it as the dominant messaging app in the country.

Telegram is the most popular messaging app in Iran which acts as the largest social media as well, simply because of its channel and group features. Imagine if there is a breaking news, the first place that people would read about it is on Telegram. And it’s not only news, any kind of content whether its text-based or multimedia it would normally get viral on Telegram. This app is basically the platform to publish short or even medium size content in Iran.

Few days ago there was a news regarding the negotiations between Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Telegram for bringing the voice call feature for Iranians. It’s interesting to know that Pavel Durov denied any arrangements with any government on his twitter account. He also mentioned the efforts of other messaging apps entering Iran which you can read about it here. 

According to the Minister of Communications, activating voice calls for Telegram depended on the mobile network operators in the country, since these networks have invested hefty budgets on their infrastructure. Ministry of Communications also announced that there was a committee doing research to assess the effects of Telegram voice call on Mobile Network Operators’ business. But apparently, Telegram didn’t wait for this research to be done and rolled out its voice call feature for Iranians. It’s interesting to point out that according to the experts at the Ministry of Communications there is no way to just filter out the voice feature of Telegram without blocking the whole app in the country, but we are not sure about it yet.

Yesterday Telegram activated the voice call feature for Iranian users but the service got blocked a few hours later. The irony is that the news of blocking Telegram’s voice call feature was circulating on Telegram itself. A few hours after this incident, the voice call feature got fixed but it’s not known yet if the operators blocked the voice calls or it was just an overload on the app. But according to Pavel Durov on his official Twitter account, it was the operators which filtered the voice call feature. We should mention that the operators have no authority over censoring or filtering the online services and it’s solely the responsibility of the Committee for Determining Instances of Criminal Content to determine whether an online service should be blocked or not.

There is also good news from the Iranian officials regarding this issue. The Head of ICT Committee of Iran’s Parliament, Ramezan-Ali Sobhanifar also made his position clear and pointed out that the operators should be open to new services and should adapt to them and even bring in the new services themselves. “If today we don’t allow Telegram’s voice call in the country soon other services would come and would threaten the operators’ business. The global trend of operator revenue is toward providing mobile internet, not the voice call,” said Ramezan-Ali Sobhanifar. It appears that the government wants to support the new online services and shake the monopoly of Mobile Network Operators over voice calls.

source:

http://techrasa.com/2017/04/15/telegram-activated-voice-call-biggest-market/

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Telegram Voice Calling Launched in Iran

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Telegram messenger, the most popular communications app in Iran, launched its voice calling service on April 13, however, according to a new tweet by the company’s founder Pavel Durov the new feature is being blocked.

Durov wrote his personal authenticated account, “ Yes, we have activated calls for our users in Iran, but Iranian operators started to filter them. I think you should complain to them.”

Following Durov’s tweet, the public relations department of MCI (Hamrah-e Avval) — Iran’s oldest and largest mobile operator — announced the company has nothing to do with blocking any service.

Local technology news agency CITNA originally reported the launch of the service on Friday.

According to the report, users should first upgrade the application to its latest version using Google Play (for Android users) or App Store (for iOS users). The service is not yet available for Windows Phone users.

However, according to tests by users of the app, no one was able to connect to each other using 3/4G connections.

According to the tests the phone rings, but when the user answers the call, the application just says “connecting”.

Eghtesad Online, a popular economic news website on its Telegram channel earlier reported that the problem was due to Client-Server Overuse. This happens when too many people on a network use a service on an application at the same time than the servers of the company offering the service can support.

Later on the service was available according to our own tests.

Irancell also denied blocking Telegram's voice calling service, later in a tweet.

@amireslamdoust @nima The problem occured in Telegram voice service was not related to MTN Irancell

— MTN Irancell-ایرانسل (@irancell) April 14, 2017

Earlier in the week Mahmoud Vaezi, the telecoms minister, said the ministry was studying the possible launch of Telegram calls in the country.

Telegram voice calling service was launched on March 30 in Europe.

According to the company’s official statement the service is currently available in Europe, South and North America, Africa and several Asian countries including Iran and Uzbekistan.

 OTT Service

Technically the service is considered an Over-the-Top (OTT) voice calling service. OTT service providers deliver audio, video and other media over the internet and bypass the traditional operators’ network.

Since OTT players do not require any business or technology affiliations with network operators for providing such services, they are often known by the term “Over-The-Top” (OTT) applications.

OTT providers do not contribute directly to the telecom revenues; however, their services can only be used by users who have an Internet subscription, which contributes to operators’ revenues.

On Wednesday Vaezi said, “Telegram officials and the government are in talks about the planned launch of the service in Iran. The primary concern is its inevitable impact on the business of Iranian mobile network operators.”

Iranian mobile operators were apparently reluctant about the launch of the Telegram call service and the negative impact it can and will have on their earnings.

Whatsapp, another messaging app owned by Facebook, has offered both voice and video calling for over a year.

Meanwhile, Skype, which also offers a mobile version can do the same.

source:

https://financialtribune.com/articles/sci-tech/62340/telegram-voice-calling-launched-in-iran