On fibre transit and market reopening
What timeline and financing model will underpin the SilkLink backbone, and what impact will it have?
ABDUL SALAM HAYKAL: SilkLink, the government’s project to make Syria a regional internet centre, is designed both to modernise our domestic backbone and to provide a route for traffic between Europe and Asia. Structurally, it has two parts. One is a nationwide fibre build – a full backbone with metropolitan rings in major cities to handle backhaul for fixed networks, mobile towers, large institutions and wholesale access. The total investment required is around $400–$500m, to be financed through an investment concession in which capital is recovered over time by selling transit capacity.
The second part is geographical leverage. Around 17% of global traffic now passes through the Red Sea, which has effectively become a single point of failure. By landing on the Mediterranean and crossing south through Jordan into Saudi Arabia, you connect almost directly to the Gulf and Indian Ocean cable systems. That shortens the route by around 6000 km, which saves 30-35 milliseconds of latency – critical for gaming, voice calls, trading, robotics and even remote surgery. That is why major data centre operators and hyperscalers are already asking how they can plug into it.
How will readmission to the GSMA accelerate roaming interoperability, eSIM and LTE development?
HAYKAL: Rejoining organisations like the GSMA ensures our operators stay aligned with global standards and access the latest interoperability frameworks. It comes as we are restructuring the mobile market. One existing licence will be cancelled and retendered under a new set of service obligations. The intention is to phase out 2G quickly, wind down 3G and focus squarely on 4G and 5G over the coming years. By 2026 I expect to see full roaming compatibility restored with regional networks, commercial eSIM onboarding available for consumers and at least one operator moving ahead with 5G pilots in dense urban zones. The broader goal is to lift average mobile speeds from around 1 Mbps today to the hundreds over the coming years.
Which user-experience targets are being set and what mix of spectrum, backhaul and last-mile incentives will drive improvement?
HAYKAL: The vision is that every mobile user should have 100 Mbps per second in their hand, and every household should be able to access one-gigabit broadband. Achieving this scale of improvement requires more spectrum, stronger backhaul – which SilkLink directly supports – and incentives for operators to move away from copper and install fibre or high-capacity wireless. These will not just be aspirational targets; they will be embedded in licence commitments.
To what extent are cybersecurity priorities being weighed in the re-evaluation of content filtering?
HAYKAL: Cybersecurity today is less about blocking content or surveillance and more about protecting citizen data, infrastructure and financial systems. Encryption is a necessity for modern services – whether in payments, cloud computing or telemedicine. So any lawful access provisions must be tightly scoped and carefully governed. The principle is security without stifling innovation or entry from global providers.
In what ways will vendor financing be de-risked amid shifting export controls and sanctions?
HAYKAL: Global vendors – from network equipment suppliers to hyperscalers – have already started re-engaging with us. What reassures them is clarity. Procurement is being structured so investors and suppliers know exactly how contracts are handled, who the counterparty is and how compliance is maintained. In several cases, companies such as Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung have already visited and begun discussing their return. The more predictable the framework, the more comfortable international financing becomes.
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