Cellular Service in Syria

Main information.

The Syrian cellular arm of Lebanon-based telecoms group Investcom Holding (itself then owned by the Mikati Group, but since taken over by MTN Group), Areeba Syria (formerly Spacetel Syria) launched services in March 2001 via its '94' network. Initially the infrastructure was rolled out to major provinces, but rural areas quickly followed and population coverage and geographic coverage were 98% and 78% in the end of 2007 respectively.

In August 2007 the cellco had 14 MSC, 32 BSC, 2035 sites, 2763 BTS.

Mobile market in Syria

The mobile market in Syria is one of the newest in the region. The country was devoid of cellular telephony until 1999 when the Ministry of Communications and Technology (MoC) granted national PTO the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE) permission to begin a trial GSM service in the major cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia. In conjunction with Siemens and Ericsson, which also partly financed the project, STE installed ten base stations in the capital and six in Aleppo and Latakia.

The pilot was launched in February 2000, with two operators selected to run the networks — SyriaTel, a joint venture between local investors and Egypt's Orascom Telecom, which has since exited the company, and Areeba Syria. At the time the pair had a combined capacity of 25,000 lines, SyriaTel with 10,000 and its rival 15,000, but a month later they had upped this to 60,000 lines, 40,000 of which were in Damascus and the remainder in Aleppo. In July 2000 network coverage was extended to the Damascus-Aleppo highway and in August to the major road between Latakia and Tartus. By the end of 2000 — effectively the end of the trial period — there were 29,000 GSM subscribers in Syria. The relatively low ta...

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...r to telecom operators in the Middle East. The supplier was Bharti Telesoft.

The Syrian market is receptive to innovation. A number of new products and services were introduced during 2007 as part of an increased focus on enhancing the customer experience. These include mobile banking services, electronic prepaid vouchers, virtual top-up and data-only cards.

Financial information (2007).

Anticipate spending 80% of budget

Total revenues: $672 million. Increased by 31%. Revenue share = 40% (Next year = 50%). Data revenues are relatively low at 6% of overall revenue, but low internet penetration of 10% provides significant upside.

Blended ARPU was slightly down from $22 at 31 December 2006 to $20 at 31 December 2007 due to increased penetration from 26% to 35%. Prepaid ARPU was $15 with postpaid at $42.

During 2007, $62 million was invested in the network.