POST: The Islamic Republic of Iran Post Company has 209 central post offices which supervise all the 275 urban and 1, 153 rural post offices, 225 urban post booths and 1,974 post office representative units. The company provides many of the internationally available post services. The inter-city letter delivery has reportedly speeded up from the average 126 hours in 1979 to five hours at present. In the past year, the company extended its inter-city facsimile service to 100 towns and cities and established new services. These include more efficient express delivery to domestic and foreign destinations, collecting parcels from the origin, delivering money orders and cheques, accepting cables by telephone, distributing telephone, electricity, water and natural gas bills, accepting orders for payment of driving fines to the Traffic Department. Stamps can be purchased at post offices, booths, and some shops.

Several relatively small companies operate letter and parcel delivery systems domestically at costs higher than those charged by Post Company. The international company, DHL (Tel: 627988, 626623), has an office in Tehran which only accepts documents for foreign destinations.

TELEPHONE: Mail and telephone services had for a long time been step-children of the authorities, resulting in a rather fanciful situation. However, in 1971, the first automatic telephone line was inaugurated between Shiraz and Tehran. The process of development in inter-city and long-distance telephone facilities has been going on continuously. You can make local calls from your hotel room or from coin-operated street telephones so designated. Long-distance and international calls must be connected by the operator. Fill out an order form at the service desk and take the call at your room or at the desk itself.

TELEGRAPH: Telegraph services are offered in more than 1,800 offices throughout Iran.

After the Revolution, S+5DX and TDM telegram systems were established at various parts of the country. There is one principal telegram center in Tehran. The service lacks automatic systems and is very slow.

TELEX: Telex service has 4,000 users in 11 cities, who are linked to two large and 10 small centers. A large new center is to raise the number of users to 10,000. The first of the two large centers operates electromechanically and has 700 telex lines. There are two other computerized centers with a combined total of 5,376 lines. Telex services can be obtained in most large and modern hotels.

FAX: Facsimile service, most useful for transmitting documents in Persian, is available in some cities as well as the high-class hotels.

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