Cellular phone service in Damascus and Aleppo

The Syrian telecommunications establishment on Monday started the operation of the first cellular network in Damascus and Aleppo for an experimental period of one year. This project is run in collaboration with the German Seimens company, the Swedish Ericsson company and the Lebanese Investcom Company, which finance the operation of 60,000 lines for free, including 40,000 lines in Damascus and 20,000 in Aleppo at a range of 40 km.

The establishment added that the subscriber has to pay US $1,200 for each line besides a monthly subscription fee of US $48, while the cost of the telephone call is 12 US cents for each minute (as opposed to our previous report stating 1 dollar per minute).

The Syrian establishment continued that after the experimental period of one year a bid will be announced to carry out the project which will then cover all parts of Syria with 900,000 lines.

However, the Syrian dailies justified the delay in establishing the cellular network in Syria in giving priority to the non-mobile telephone service. The Syrian daily al-Thawra indicated that few of the Syrians can pay the "heavy costs" of the cellular service.