It's not the Internet it's the "Enter-not", laments a Syrian student, frustrated by his government's tight control over access to the World-wide Web. High-speed Internet connections or "broadband" was offered to Syrian consumers for the first time last year - years behind other tech-savvy Middle East countries - but even then, the fast Internet service was decidedly old fashioned. The state-run telecommunications banned web voice and video communication, key benefits of the broadband service.
"The (local) Internet service should be called the 'enter-not'," complained the student. "Many sites and services are blocked without any explanation. It's a question of control."
Officials said the ban by the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE) was due to financial reasons, but many see it as an attempt to tighten the state's grip on communications.
Hundreds of thousands of Syria's 17 million people live abroad for work or study. Thousands used to communicate with loved ones through the Internet.
The broadband ban was imposed after the removal of restrictions on popular e-mail services such as Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail.
"When access to these e-mail services was allowed we thought they will remove more restrictions, then they came with this limitation," said one woman.
"I used to talk to my brother in Canada through an Internet cafe. Now I am told that I cannot," said Rasha Mahmoud, a housewife.
"It's good that the company did not control the business of homing pigeons when telephones were invented because they would have banned the use of telephones," said businessman Hisham Darweesh.
Experts say it is virtually impossible for any government to fully monitor all Internet-based communications, but they concede that text is far easier to tab electronically by setting a criterion that picks out those who use "rogue" terms.
Restricted sites range from politics to technology and religious extremism.
The STE has not specified penalties against those who violate the ban but several people said they believed those who did could risk getting cut off.
Firas Bakkour, director of the Internet service at the Syrian Computer Society (SCS), said the ban was intended to reduce the drop in STE income as people shifted to cheap Internet-based overseas telephone services.
"The income of STE was receding ... I personally disagree with this move because it has a negative impact on those who need it for other very important purposes," Bakkour said.
Late last year STE reduced fees for international calls by about 15 percent in an apparent attempt to dampen the impact of the ban on web telephony services, but its charges are still very steep compared to Internet-based web to telephone services.
Some Internet based telephone services provide telephone calls to the United States and Britain for less than $0.05 per minute compared to about $1.15 through STE while PC to PC voice and video services are free where accessible.
The STE's broadband Internet services come at a hefty cost both in terms of average domestic income and in comparison with tariffs in other countries including fellow Arab states.
An Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) with a download bandwidth of one megabite per second costs 18,000 Syrian pounds ($346) a month without a real Internet Protocol (IP) - 10 times more than in Jordan and five more than the Egyptian tariff.
Even the relatively slow dial-up service is too expensive in socialist Syria where average income is estimated at $200 to $300 a month.
STE wants subscribers to pay an extra 4,000 Syrian pounds to have real IP access without which the service is reduced to a restricted Web browsing service.
STE director general Emad Sabouni was not available for comment. Sources familiar with the STE policies said it was responding to directives from the Ministry of Communications and Technology.
The Syrian Computer Society, which provides the STE-based Internet service to about 55,000 clients under an arrangement with the STE, has no alternative but to comply with the ban although it disagrees with it.
"Many clients are complaining and I understand their problems but we cannot offer a different solution," said Bakkour.
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