TELECOM · GOVERNANCE
Governance
The ministry, the regulator and the state operator, and every licence Umran can evidence — with its term, its consideration and the obligations attached to it.
Telecom Index 4 sourced indicators of 15
Institutions
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Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
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Syrian Telecommunications Establishment
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Syrian Sovereign Fund
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Syrian Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority
The authority operates according to the general policies and directions set by the ministry, per the ministry's own description. Umran does not describe it as independent, and the structural consequence of that is recorded as a gap rather than as an adjective here.
Licences and concessions
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National mobile licence
- Granted
- 30 June 2026
- Term
- 20years
- Consideration
- 747,000,000USD
Initial rollout targeting over 98% population coverage, investment of more than USD 800m over ten years, and a six-month transition from MTN Syria preserving service for 6.3 million subscribers. A USD 10m optional first-year spectrum fee sits on top of the consideration.
Sources
Method
Term recorded as 20 years with an optional five-year extension, which is the regulator's own phrasing. Some trade press renders the same licence as "25-year" by folding the extension into the base term; where a secondary source and the regulator disagree on the terms of the regulator's own instrument, the regulator wins.
No data
The licence text itself has not been read — everything here is from the regulator's statement about it. Spectrum bands, coverage milestone dates and penalty terms unsourced.
Sources
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National fibre backbone concession
- Granted
- 7 February 2026
- Term
- No data
- Consideration
- No data
Build the national backbone and reconnect Syria to regional and international networks. Detailed concession terms are not published.
Sources
No data
Consideration stays null deliberately. SAR 3bn is now settled as total project investment per stc's Tadawul filing — which is a different quantity from what, if anything, the JV pays for the concession itself. Conflating an investment commitment with a licence fee would be the same category error the stake-price reading was. Term, exclusivity and whether this instrument is a concession or a shareholders' agreement are all still unsourced; the asset label may need correcting once the document is seen.
Sources
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Former mobile licence
- Granted
- No data
- Term
- No data
- Consideration
- No data
Not sourced.
Sources
No data
Recorded as expired because it is being replaced by the 2026 award, but the mechanism — expiry, revocation or surrender — is not established, and expired may be the wrong enum. Original grant date, term and consideration all unsourced.
Sources
Regulator decisions on the record
Licensing actions published by the authority. Two carry directly on who can provide service at all: possession and use of drones and Starlink satellite internet now require prior licence, and a Wi-Fi licensing round has been opened to cover areas with no internet service — an admission of where the fixed network does not reach. Also on the record: cancellation of Commissioners' Council decision no. 44 of 31 August 2021 on secondary reseller licensing for mobile lines, a licensing requirement for vehicle-tracking services, and a compliance grace period for telecom and postal providers.
These are recorded here rather than on the timeline because the authority publishes them without dates Umran can cite. A timeline entry needs a date, and a placeholder would imply precision that does not exist. Sourcing the decision dates promotes each of these to an event.
Tenders
Two competitive processes are on the record: the SilkLink backbone tender, launched by the ministry in May 2025 and attracting stc, Zain, Etisalat and Ooredoo; and the mobile licence tender, launched at MWC Barcelona in March 2026 and awarded on 30 June. Bid documents and evaluation criteria are not published for either.
Commitments ledger
Every dated promise made in public about this sector, with what the calendar says about it. Including one that cannot be reconciled.