A gap here is stated without a figure, because the figures that would size it are exactly what nobody publishes. Where a gap asserts an absence, the absence is verifiable from the indicator table: those rows carry no source because no source was found. If one surfaces, the gap closes and the row fills.
Ranked by what is blocked behind it
01 No published coverage measurement
Critical mobile
Current state
Nobody publishes mobile or broadband coverage for Syria: not the ministry, not the regulator, not the operators. Targets are announced — 98% in Zain's licence, 85% of households for Barq Net — with no baseline figure to measure them against.
Why it matters
A commitment with no baseline cannot be missed. This gap neutralises every coverage commitment in the ledger, and holds the index gate closed until independent measurement opens it.
Indicators: Mobile population coverage FTTH connections
Sources
Method
This gap asserts an absence, which is verified by the indicator table rather than by a document: the coverage rows carry no source because no source was found. If one surfaces, this gap closes and the row fills.
Sources
Umran — absence of a published series · 11 August 2026
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
02 Last mile ahead of the backbone
High fixed-broadband
Current state
Barq Net is the last mile and SilkLink the backbone, the two joining once the backbone completes, per the ministry. But SilkLink's first phase has two incompatible timelines: the ministry's six to eight months from November 2025, and a contractor timeline of starting within 18 to 24 months from February 2026.
Why it matters
Fibre to the home behind an unfinished backbone delivers local speed and a congested international path. The distance between the two timelines is not a scheduling detail — it is the difference between a working last mile and a waiting one.
Indicators: Backbone fibre built FTTH connections
Sources
Sources
SANA, quoting Minister Abdulsalam Haykal · 21 November 2025
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
03 A single international path
High international
Current state
SilkLink's scope includes a landing station at Tartus and terrestrial interconnects with Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Available international capacity today, and the transit paths actually in use, are unpublished; a design-capacity figure circulates on a weak secondary source.
Why it matters
A single-path network is one cut from dark, and this is answerable from outside via BGP and RIPE with no operator cooperation — so the gap here is in the work, not in what can be known.
Indicators: International capacity
Sources
Sources
Saudi Press Agency · 7 February 2026
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
04 A regulator operating under ministry policy
High
Current state
The Syrian Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority exists and functions, with a broad mandate: licensing conditions, spectrum management, the numbering plan, fees and fines, pricing review, complaints and postal regulation. The ministry's own site states that it operates according to the general policies and directions set by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
Why it matters
This is not independence in the ITU sense, which is a factual distinction rather than a judgement. Its consequence is practical: the ministry launched SilkLink, Barq Net and the mobile licence tender, and it also sets the policy of the authority that licenses those same projects and reviews their pricing. Buyer and regulator are therefore not fully separated — the point on which lenders and investors usually rest their case for an independent regulator before committing.
Indicators: Licensed mobile operators Price per GB
Sources
Method
This gap quotes the ministry's own description of the relationship rather than characterising it. Umran does not call the authority captured, ineffective or compromised — it states what the mandate says and what follows structurally from it. The distinction belongs here rather than in the regulator's data record, where an adjective would read as a verdict.
No data
The establishing decree and the Commissioners' Council composition would sharpen this: a regulator whose board is appointed by the minister it is meant to check is a stronger version of the same point. Not sourced.
Sources
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology — on the regulatory authority · 11 August 2026
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
05 A market with one operating carrier
Moderate mobile
Current state
Two licensed, one operating: Syriatel operates, Zain Syria is licensed but not launching before Q1 2027, and MTN Syria's licence is being replaced under a six-month transition.
Why it matters
Between now and Zain's launch there is a period of reduced competitive pressure on tariffs and coverage — the same period in which the network is supposed to be built. Counting licences does not measure competition; market share or tariff dispersion would, and neither is published.
Indicators: Licensed mobile operators Price per GB
Sources
06 No published price for data
Moderate mobile
Current state
No published figure for the price of a gigabyte or the average subscription bill, and no comparison of either against the minimum expenditure basket.
Why it matters
A network nobody can afford is covered on paper only. The expenditure basket is already in Umran's data; the tariff is the only missing half.
Indicators: Price per GB
Sources
Method
An asserted absence, verified by the indicator table rather than a document — the tariff row carries no source because none was found.
Sources
Umran — absence of a published series · 11 August 2026
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
07 The network follows the grid
Moderate mobile
Current state
Umran publishes electricity hours and generation capacity in the Recovery Index; there is no published series for network outages or availability to set beside them.
Why it matters
A tower without power is a tower that is off, and network outages are measurable from outside via IODA and Cloudflare Radar. Setting the two side by side is an observation nobody publishes about Syria, and the shortest route to independent tier.
Indicators: National outage minutes National network availability
Sources
Sources
Umran — Recovery Index, infrastructure domain · 2 August 2026
Confidence: Official · Last updated: 11 August 2026
Methodology & sources
08 Nothing published at governorate level
High
Current state
Every available figure for Syria's telecom sector is national. Coverage, fibre, quality and prices are not published by governorate, which leaves Umran's map empty across all fourteen.
Why it matters
A national average hides the distance between Damascus and its countryside, and between the coast and the east. Barq Net's scope covers all fourteen governorates; nothing shows which of them the service has actually reached.
Indicators: Governorates in fibre plan scope
Sources
See the indicator table