The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network, referring to the period of internet shutdown during the days of war, announced: the National Information Network passed its test and efforts were made to ensure people's work continued without interruption and with urgency.
Vahid Yazdanian, announcing this news and stating that the last assessment the National Cyberspace Center carried out at the end of 1403 of the project's progress was 58.94 percent, added: after that, due to wartime conditions, no renewed evaluation was carried out. However, he stated that the center's internal assessment of the project's progress is over 73 percent.
According to the Deputy for Development of the National Information Network, this assessment was made based on seven axes, which include the axis of developing communication infrastructure, developing information infrastructure, developing basic services, sectional advantage and economic model, independence and integrated management, enhancing security and sanitization and localization, and 90 percent of the National Cyberspace Center's performance was in two very important axes, namely "independence and integrated management" and the "communication infrastructure development axis," and we made significant progress.
The National Information Network needs public trust
Yazdanian said that a public trust must be created regarding the National Information Network: with the creation of trust, private sector capital will enter the network and the network's development and prosperity will be realized through the private sector's efforts so that it has economic returns. He also reminded of the duties and missions of other bodies for the development of the National Information Network and said: one of the axes of the National Information Network discussion is localization, whose performance is 40 percent. Localization is not the sole duty of the Ministry of Communications, and many other ministries, knowledge-based companies and the private sector also participate in it. Our assessment of localization performance is now about 60 percent, and this issue lowers the 90 percent overall performance, and therefore the reason for the overall network performance being what it is, is that the Ministry of Communications is not the only responsible body and other bodies must also fulfill their duties in this regard.
Layers of the National Information Network
The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network, referring to the layers of the National Information Network, said: the National Information Network is a four-layer model in which network infrastructure is the first layer, National Information Network services are the second layer, application services are the third layer and content is the fourth layer, and the division of the National Information Network is based on these four layers, and all evaluations being made about the network are focused on the two layers of infrastructure and network services while what society interacts with is the content layer and application services.
Yazdanian continued: application services include e-government, e-health, e-education, Internet of Things services, audio and video services, artificial intelligence services, etc., and content includes games and entertainment, audio and video content, data content or messaging content of social network messengers, and therefore what people feel are these two layers and naturally the Ministry of Communications does not have the main role in this area, but we have entered these domains and help and the Ministry of Communications is also pursuing it.
He noted: when it is repeatedly asked why the National Information Network does not start? The reason is those two layers that are the focus and 15 other bodies alongside the Ministry of Communications participate and must pay their share.
Vahid Yazdanian, Deputy for Development of the National Information Network
The National Information Network does not mean eliminating the internet
The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network, emphasizing that one should not fuel a dichotomy between the internet and the National Information Network, added: in past years a dichotomy arose between the internet and the National Information Network that we tried to remove. The National Information Network does not mean the elimination of the internet and it should not be defined as a separate set from international accesses. According to him, this dichotomy is wrong and there must be trust in the National Information Network. A network that guarantees people's access and with which people communicate, and in the shadow of trust, the private sector invests.
Need to revise the master plan of the National Information Network
Yazdanian raised the need to revise the master plan and architecture of the National Information Network and said in this regard: the master plan and architecture document of the National Information Network were drafted in 1398 and approved in 1399; but according to the law, the master plan and architecture document of the information network must be reviewed every two years. According to him, in the past the discussion of artificial intelligence was not as widespread or in the search ecosystem everyone went to search engines and Google, but now professionals less often go to search engines and use AI tools and assistants because the search model has changed and artificial intelligence, new technologies and augmented reality have emerged, so it is natural that our evaluation models must also change and become more qualitative and precise.
In another part of the interview with ISNA about whether one can rely on the National Information Network in critical conditions such as war to facilitate people's access, he said: in fact the wartime period, whether the 12-day war or the Ramadan war, was a ground for testing the network's stability and we were able to identify strengths and weaknesses. Certainly there were deficiencies that cannot be denied. Frankly, the internet outage and people's access was bitter, but despite the bitterness of the internet outage, the National Information Network passed its test and was able to gain people's trust and satisfaction in many of its services.
The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network asserted: people used domestic messaging apps well and despite a large volume of information and audio and video exchange, electronic services were not cut off. People easily conducted their administrative work during that war period. According to him, more than one billion transactions were registered at the Electronic Exchange Center in the Information Technology Organization and people received the services they requested based on electronic prescriptions, and the disruptions that existed initially were quickly and urgently resolved so that people's work would not be left undone.