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 was carried out without interruption and urgently.
Vahid Yazdanian, announcing this news and stating that the last assessment the National Cyberspace Center carried out at the end of 1403 on the project's progress was 58.94 percent, added: due to wartime conditions, no reassessment has been conducted since then. However, he announced this center's internal assessment of the project's progress as 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 development of communication infrastructure, development of information infrastructure, development of basic services, value-adding and economic model, independence and integrated management, enhancement of 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 remarkable 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 development and prosperity of the network will be achieved through the efforts of the private sector so that it has economic returns. He meanwhile 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 solely the duty of the Ministry of Communications and multiple 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 matter lowers the overall 90 percent performance and therefore the reason for the network's overall performance being low 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, while referring to the layers of the National Information Network, said: the National Information Network is a four-layer model whose first layer is the network infrastructure, the second layer is National Information Network services, the third layer is application services and the fourth layer is content, 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 deals 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 the content of messaging services of social networks, and therefore what people feel are these two layers and naturally the Ministry of Communications does not have the primary role in this area, but we have entered these fields and we help and the Ministry of Communications is also pursuing them.
He noted: that it is repeatedly said why the National Information Network does not get underway? The reason is those two layers that the focus is on and 15 other bodies alongside the Ministry of Communications participate that must pay their share.
Vahid Yazdanian, Deputy for Development of the National Information Network
The National Information Network does not mean the elimination of the internet
The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network, emphasizing that one should not fuel the dichotomy of the internet and the National Information Network, added: over the past years a dichotomy had arisen between the internet and the National Information Network which we tried to resolve. The National Information Network does not mean eliminating the internet and it should not be defined as a set separate 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 people connect with it 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 was 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. He said that 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 "the National Information Network can be relied upon in crisis conditions such as war to facilitate people's access?" he said: in fact the war 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 shortcomings that cannot be denied. Frankly the internet outage and people's access were bitter but despite the bitterness of the internet outage, the National Information Network passed its test and in many of its services was able to gain people's trust and satisfaction.
The Deputy for Development of the National Information Network emphasized: people used domestic messaging apps well and despite large volumes of information, audio and video exchange, electronic services were not cut off. People carried out their administrative work with ease during that war period. According to him, more than one billion transactions were registered at the Electronic Exchanges Center in the Information Technology Organization and people received the services they requested based on electronic prescriptions and the disruptions that existed at the beginning were quickly and urgently resolved so that people's work would not be halted.