January 2000

Syria Update Memo

The following report outlines new developments in the past three months and the state of on-going developments.

There has been no change in the telecommunications policy, or in the regulatory framework, in Syria during the last quarter. However, some planned GSM stations are becoming functional and liberalisation of the Internet service was implemented as decided by the Government about 6 months ago.

1. General Telecoms Policy

1.1 Liberalisation

Liberalisation is coming in small steps with Law 10 of 1991 and its amendments, which encourages investment of foreign capital guaranteeing security and tax exemption. New ventures are open to the private sector, whether in the form of joint ventures with the public sector (for basic national sectors) or for solely for private companies.

1.2 Licensing

The first GSM pilot stations in Syria with a capacity of 15000 lines have been completed by Siemens and are currently under trial operation. Starting in January 2000 the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE) will start accepting applications for GSM subscriptions to become available for private citizens. The relatively high rates keep the GSM telephony out of the reach of ordinary users, and business people who are in dire need of mobile telephony will acquire most of the available 15000 subscriptions.

1.3 Universal service

STE, so far the sole Internet Service Provider, has run out of capacity for new subscribers and stopped accepting applications for the Internet.

1.4 Tariffs policies

The one time installation fee for the GSM subscription will be around 1200 Euros and each minute of communication will cost about 0.1 Euro.

1.5 Quality of service

Quality of service in the Internet is not improving. The downtime is still high, and Internet service can remain unavailable for several days. The maximum number of subscribers has been reached, and no new subscription in e-mail or full Internet service is possible anymore.

1.6 Interconnection

Frame Relay ATM X25 Network project is still in the technical evaluation phase.

The bids received in response to a call for tenders to provide a national Internet backbone, as well as the necessary equipment to allow STE to become an ISP, are being studied technically. It is expected to complete the technical and economical study by February 2000, with the implementation to be completed by November 2000.

2. Information society policies

2.1 Umbrella policies

Computerisation of all government institutions and making the Internet available for institutions and businesses in the first place and for the public at large in the second place are the main pillars of IS policy in Syria.

2.2 IS Application areas

2.2.1 Government

Ministries and Government agencies are encouraged to become computerised and to keep up-to-date in their computerisation. The Ministry of Finance has recently completed the computerisation of its backbone using LANs, WANs and distributed database technologies. The various modules will then be able to interact through this backbone.

The Ministry of Education is also striving towards getting all information about schools, teaching personnel and pupils in Syria, and getting computerised using networking and distributed databases. This will allow for more efficient planning and rationalisation of resources. The current centralised database is being developed towards that goal through links to all directorates of the ministry in Syria.

An important institution touching every working person in Syria, the Social Security Establishment (SSE), has been implementing the full computerisation of its services using the available networking technologies and distributed databases during the past couple of years. Now that the system is almost completed, citizens can clearly feel the difference with the improved services and the acceleration of procedures.

2.2.2 Research and education

The main research and education projects are carried out by the Higher Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (HIAST) in collaboration with national and international institutions. Examples of such projects are:

• Learning Arabic using an IT-based communicative approach;
• System for carpet design and manufacturing adapted to local industry;
• Policies for the transfer of voice over IP; and
• Text-to-speech system for Arabic.

3. Telecommunication liberalisation

The technical evaluation of the bids to build a national Internet backbone is under way, and contracts are expected to be signed in February 2000. This will allow private ISPs to get licences for building their services. The Syrian Computer Society obtained a special licence to start an ISP for its members. This will be the first private ISP to operate within approximately 3 months.

STE is pursuing its campaign (which started in August 1999) of cutting telephone lines and making subscribers pay fines to restore it for the illegal use of international telephone connections to access the Internet through Lebanese ISPs.

4. Media and telecommunication markets: privatisations, foreign investments, mergers and acquisitions

The first GSM pilot stations in Syria with a capacity of 15,000 lines have been completed by Siemens and are currently under trial operation. Another similar pilot project of 10,000 lines is being implemented by Ericsson and should be ready by February. Both will be operated by their respective companies with STE remaining in control of policies and subscriptions.