A major Iranian telecommunications operator has confirmed that it has an international roaming service deal with America’s AT&T.

Majid Sadri, the managing director of RighTel, was quoted by Iranian media as saying that his company has already been able to establish roaming services with 123 operators in 87 countries. They, as the company says on its website, include the US.

Sadri’s remarks followed a report by the New York Times that AT&T had started to provide voice and data service in Iran to its customers with American phones through a partnership with RighTel.

RighTel on its website has named AT&T as a host service provider in the US.

Earlier in March, Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi told the domestic media that RighTel was the only Iranian operator that had started to take measures to establish an international roaming service between Iran and the US.

Vaezi acknowledged that this was a result of the removal of sanctions against Iran that had, as he put it, “helped facilitate business with not only the US, but also with Europe”.

Sadri further told ISNA news agency that his company has also roaming deals with 33 European countries. They are mostly supported by British telecom giant Vodafone, according to RighTel website.

The New York Times added that the deal between RighTel and AT&T had been sealed in March and that this had made America’s second largest telecommunications services provider the only US provider to offer phone service in Iran.

The opening up of phone service is undoubtedly a welcome surprise to Iranians and the approximately two million Iranians living in the United States, many of whom travel frequently to their home country, the New York Times added in its report.