Telecommunications in Syria

Telecommunications in Syria is slowly moving towards liberalization, with a number of licenses awarded and services launched in the Internet service provision market. The initiative reflects the government’s change in attitude towards liberalization, following its promise to the European Union to liberalize markets by 2010. All other forms of fixed-line communications are provided by the state owned operator, Syrian Telecom (Syriatel or STE).^[1]

Telecommunications system

International dialing code: +963^[2]

Further information: Telephone numbers in Syria

Landline telephones in use in 2008: 3,871,000.^[3]

Mobile phones in use in 2009: 9,697,000.^[3] The mobile operators are Syriatel (http://www.syriatel.sy) and MTN (http://www.mtn.com.sy). There is mobile phone coverage in most parts of Syria providing access to 96% of the population. Call quality ranges from acceptable to poor. Many international calls fail or are less clear over the mobile network compared to the landline network.

Radio: 14 AM, 11 FM, and 1 shortwave stations in 1998. The radio operators are the state owned Syrian Arab Republic Radio and Al-Madina FM, the first private radio station, launched in March 2005.^[2] Private radio stations cannot transmit news or political content.

Further information: List of radio stations in Syria

Television: There are two television operators: the state owned Syrian Television which operates two domestic networks and a satellite channel, broadcasting in Arabic, English, and French and the private Al-Dunya TV. Private TV stations cannot transmit news or political content. There are no restrictions on the use of satellite receivers and many viewers watch pan-Arab TV stations.^[2] Roughly two-thirds of Syrian homes have a satellite dish providing access to foreign TV broadcasts.^[3]

Internet

Country code: The top level domain for Syria is .sy.

There were 4,469,000 Internet users in Syria as of June 2011 for a 19.8% Internet penetration rate.^[4] Syria ranks 12th out of 14 countries in the Middle East region, just behind Jordan (26.8%) and Lebanon (29.0%) and ahead of Yemen (9.7%) and Iraq (2.8%). Growth in the number of Internet users has been fairly steady since 2005:^[1]

Year	Internet users	% of population
2000	30,000	0.2%
2002	220,000	1.2%
2005	800,000	4.2%
2009	3,565,000	16.4%
2010	3,935,000	17.7%
2011	4,469,000	19.8%

There were 8,114 Syrian Internet hosts in 2010, placing Syria 133rd out of 231 in the world.^[3]

With a measured download speed that averages 768 kbit/s, the speed of the Internet in Syria is relatively slow compared to the world-wide average of 4.6 Mbit/s.^[5][6]

ADSL service in Syria has been available since 2003.^[7] However, ADSL is not available in all locations and, where available, the local telco may not have enough ports for immediate activation. Through 2009 broadband Internet access had reached less than 0.2% of the Syrian population.^[8][9]

The 3G wireless Internet is available in all major cities as well as cities with significant tourism. 3.5G EDGE wireless Internet is available through mobile network operators, SyriaTel and MTN. Wireless Internet is accessed using a USB stick purchased from the mobile operators. In addition, 3G SIM cards for use on mobile phones may be purchased with a data plan. However, only WCDMA phones support data at the moment.

High-speed Internet is also available through many Internet cafes.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

ISPs in Syria include:

• SAWA Internet Provider
• Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE)
• Runnet
• AYA
• E-LCOM
• SCS
• ZAD
• Teranet
• INET
• Extra

Internet censorship

Main article: Internet censorship in Syria

Internet filtering in Syria was found to be pervasive in the political and Internet tools areas, and selective in the social and conflict/security areas by the OpenNet Initiative in August 2009.^[10] Syria has been on Reporters Without Borders Enemy of the Internet list since 2006 when the list was established.^[11] In 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists named Syria number three in a list of the ten worst countries in which to be a blogger, given the arrests, harassment, and restrictions which online writers in Syria have faced.^[12]

Syria has banned websites for political reasons and arrested people accessing them. In addition to filtering a wide range of Web content, the Syrian government monitors Internet use very closely and has detained citizens "for expressing their opinions or reporting information online." Vague and broadly worded laws invite government abuse and have prompted Internet users to engage in self-censoring and self-monitoring to avoid the state's ambiguous grounds for arrest.^[10][13]

In February 2011 Syria stopped filtering YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.^[14]

Syrian Telecom uses a caching proxy and as a result updates to news agency sites may not appear in Syria for many hours.^{[citation needed]}

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is blocked completely and requires a proxy or Virtual Private Network (VPN) to work around it.^[15] However, VoIP operators that utilize non-standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) ports may function behind Syria's proxy. VPN Access using the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is also blocked.^{[citation needed]}

Internet cafes, which are wide spread and accessible to the public for a fee, can be used to access blocked sites.^[16] However, more restrictions have been placed on internet cafes, all public internet centers need operating approval from the security services, are required to keep detailed records of their customers' surfing habits, and people have been arrested after accessing blocked content.^[17]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Internet Usage and Marketing Report: Syria", Internet World Stats, 2010
2. ^ ^{a b c} "BBC Syria country profile", BBC News, 2 August 2011
3. ^ ^{a b c d} "CIA World Factbook: Syria", U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 23 August 2011
4. ^ "Internet Usage in the Middle East", Internet World Stats, 30 June 2011
5. ^ Measured between January and June 2011, "Global Download Report", Pando Networks, 22 September 2011
6. ^ "Global Download Study", ChartsBin.com, accessed 23 September 2011
7. ^ "Broadband internet comes to Syria", Syria News Wire, 16 January 2007
8. ^ "Worksheet 3: Broadband", Richard Heeks, Google Docs, 16 September 2010
9. ^ "Global ICT Statistics on Internet Usage, Mobile, Broadband: 1998-2009", Richard Heeks, ICT4DBlog, 16 September 2010
10. ^ ^{a b} "ONI Country Profile: Syria", OpenNet Initiative, August 2009
11. ^ "Internet Enemies: Syria", Reporters Without Boarders, March 2011
12. ^ "10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger", Committee to Protect Journalists, 30 April 2009
13. ^ "Syrian jailed for internet usage". BBC News. 21 June 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3824595.stm. 
14. ^ "الغاء الحجب عن موقع "فيسبوك" في سورية (Syrian government abolishes bans on "Facebook" and "YouTube")" (in ar). D Press News. 8 February 2011. http://www.dp-news.com/pages/detail.aspx?articleid=73458.  (English translation)
15. ^ "Measuring Global Internet Filtering", Robert Faris and Nart Villeneuve, in Access denied: the practice and policy of global Internet filtering, Ronald Deibert (ed), OpenNet Initiative, 2008
16. ^ Institute for War and Peace Reporting (3 June 2008). "Syrian youth break through internet blocks". http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?ots591=4888CAA0-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=88422. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 
17. ^ "Syria tightens control over internet", Phil Sands, The National (Abu Dhabi), 30 September 2008