TELECOM · INDICATORS
Indicators
The fifteen measures behind the telecom index, grouped by domain. Each carries its value, its confidence tier and its source — or says plainly that no source exists.
Telecom Index 4 sourced indicators of 15
4 of 15 indicators are sourced to official data or independent measurement. That is 24.7% of index weight, against the 60% needed before a composite score is published.
Coverage
Weights: 20% · Who can reach a network at all — the precondition for every other domain.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Mobile subscribersmobileHow is this calculated?No data Subscriber base on the MTN Syria network being transferred to Zain Syria. Baseline at Dec 2024 and a target still need sourcing. Sources | 6.3million subscribers | Official | SANA / Zain Group |
Mobile population coveragemobileHow is this calculated?No data The target is sourced and the current value is not, which is why the record reads pending: the tier describes the figure that renders, and that figure is the current one. The 98% target is a licence obligation on Zain Syria for its initial rollout, stated by the regulator and recorded in licences.json — it is not an Umran assumption. Nobody publishes actual coverage, so there is nothing to measure the obligation against. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Internet penetrationfixed-broadbandHow is this calculated?No data A modelled estimate, not a measurement — it does not qualify as independent and cannot count toward the gauge gate. Replace with an ITU or ministry figure if one appears. Sources | 35.8% of population | Reported | Kepios / DataReportal |
Network quality
Weights: 20% · Whether the connection works when it is needed. The domain most open to independent measurement, and so the likeliest route to opening the gate.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
National network availabilitymobileHow is this calculated?No data IODA, measurable from outside Syria with no operator cooperation. Not seed data, though: this is an API returning a series that changes daily, so a number pasted in today is stale next week — the opposite of what an independent-tier indicator is for. It needs a scheduled fetch writing into this record's series array, which is a build task requiring network access, not a research task. Until that exists this row stays empty, and the gauge gate cannot open. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
National outage minutesmobileHow is this calculated?No data IODA and Cloudflare Radar, and pairing it against the grid hours already in the Recovery Index is the original observation nobody else publishes about Syria. Same constraint as network availability: an API series, not a document, so it needs a scheduled fetch rather than a research pass. This is the single highest-value row on the vertical and the one that cannot be filled by reading anything. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Median download speedfixed-broadbandHow is this calculated?No data M-Lab NDT, but with two conditions that must be settled before a figure is published. First, the tests are user-initiated: people run a speed test when their connection is misbehaving, so volume spikes during outages, and under rolling power cuts that skew is severe. This can only be published as "median measured throughput among users who ran a test, n=X" — never as a national average, and always with the count beside it, which is M-Lab's own guidance. Second, check Syrian sample density first: one BigQuery query against measurement-lab.ndt.ndt7 filtered to client.Geo.CountryCode = 'SY'. If Syrian ASNs return hundreds of tests rather than thousands, this indicator cannot be published honestly at all, and the network-quality domain should be re-scoped to reachability — which IODA and Cloudflare Radar can measure — with the weight change published as a methodology correction. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Infrastructure
Weights: 20% · Backbone, fibre and data centres actually in the ground — not announced.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Backbone fibre plannedfibreHow is this calculated?No data Planned, not built. The paired built-km indicator is the one that measures anything. Sources | 4,500km | Official | Saudi Press Agency |
Backbone fibre builtfibreHow is this calculated?No data No figure published for fibre actually laid. This is the gap between announcement and asphalt, in one row. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
FTTH connectionsfibreHow is this calculated?No data Barq Net is committed to connecting 85% of homes and institutions within two years of its 15 June 2025 launch, which puts the deadline at 15 June 2027 — now sourced to the day. This row is the only thing that could verify it, and no figure for connections delivered is published. A commitment that is precisely dated and entirely unmeasurable is worth stating as exactly that. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Data centre capacitydata-centresHow is this calculated?No data No published capacity figure for Syrian data centres. SilkLink's scope includes switching centres; whether any carry commercial colocation capacity is unclear. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Governorates in fibre plan scopefixed-broadbandHow is this calculated?No data Scope, not delivery. All 14 governorates are inside the plan; none is evidenced as served. Sources | 14governorates | Official | Ministry of Communications and Information Technology — Barq Net RFI portal |
Competition
Weights: 10% · How many operators can actually contest the market, and on what terms.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Licensed mobile operatorsmobileHow is this calculated?No data Two licensed, one operating: Syriatel operates, Zain Syria is licensed but has not launched, and MTN Syria's licence is being replaced. A count of licences is a weak proxy for contestability — replace with a market-share or tariff-dispersion measure when one is sourceable. Sources | 2operators | Official | SANA — Syrian Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority |
Affordability
Weights: 10% · What connectivity costs against what a household earns.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Price per GBmobileHow is this calculated?No data Operator tariff sheets are the source. Publish against the minimum expenditure basket already in cost-of-living.json rather than as a bare dollar figure — the number only means something next to a wage. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
International connectivity
Weights: 10% · Capacity and redundancy out of the country — a single-path network is one cut from dark.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
International capacityinternationalHow is this calculated?No data A 100 Tbps figure circulates for SilkLink's design capacity on a weak secondary source, and design capacity is not available capacity in any case. Needs a primary document. Transit paths are separately observable via BGP and RIPE. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Digital readiness
Weights: 10% · What the network is used for once it exists: services, payments, government online.
| Indicators | Value | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Digital services readinessHow is this calculated?No data Candidate source is the UN E-Government Development Index, which carries Syria. Confirm the edition and whether the sub-indices are usable before wiring it in. Sources | No data | Not available | No data |
Why so many are empty
Syria has no regulator publishing coverage, speed or price series, and operators are not compelled to file them. Where a figure cannot be sourced it is left null and rendered as “No data”, never estimated into place. The measures most likely to fill first are the ones measurable from outside the country — outage minutes, availability, median speeds — because they need nobody's cooperation.
How is this calculated?
Weights
- Coverage 20%
- Network quality 20%
- Infrastructure 20%
- Competition 10%
- Affordability 10%
- International connectivity 10%
- Digital readiness 10%
Formula
progress % = (current − Dec 2024 baseline) ÷ (target − baseline)
The composite is not published until 60% of index weight is populated by official data or independent measurement. Estimates and press-reported figures do not count. Below the gate there is no score to render.