Iran Govt ordered MTN Irancell to extend mobile coverage to disputed islands

Iranian mobile operator says it covers certain areas of the Persian Gulf via a roaming agreement with Etisalat. The Iranian government has ordered the country's second-largest telcoms operator MTN Irancell to extend its network to cover Abu Musa and other disputed islands in the Persian Gulf, after Iranian visitors to Abu Musa received cellphone messages welcoming them to the United Arab Emirates, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Iran and the U.A.E. both claim sovereignty over Abu Musa and two other Iranian-occupied islands near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which one fifth of the world's crude oil supply passes. Tensions over the issue have risen after a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Abu Musa last month, the first by an Iranian president, sparked a storm of protest from the U.A.E. and other GCC countries.

Now reports that Irancell's coverage doesn't extend to Abu Musa have caused anger within Iran, specially parliament speaker Ali Larijani called it  for a "serious and public" investigation into the matter.

Irancell's public relations manager Arash Karimbeigi was quoted in Iranian newspapers as saying that the company has an agreement with the U.A.E.'s Emirates Telecommunications Corp to provide coverage in some areas of the Persian Gulf that are out of Irancell's range, resulting in Iranian visitors to Abu Musa receiving SMS messages from the Etisalat network welcoming them to the U.A.E.

"It was a technical problem ... the Iranian Foreign Ministry has given directives to Irancell to enhance the coverage over Iranian territories ... and not to fall in a similar mistake in the future," Alireza Enayati, director of the Persian Gulf affairs at the Iranian foreign ministry told Zawya Dow Jones in a telephone interview.

Telecommunication Company of Iran (MCI-Hamrah Aval) is the largest while Irancell is the second largest mobile phone operator in Iran, in which South Africa's MTN Group holds a minority 49% stake with the remainder owned by Iran Electronic Development Company, with 28% share of the local market.