Telecommunications in Saudi Arabia

[1] The Directorate of Post, Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) was the first governmental entity established by the founder King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud in 1926 to provide and control the postal and telecommunication services.

(2) Integrated Telecom Company (ITC) second operator after STC, established in 2005 and offers internet, broadband, connectivity and satellite services for businesses, consumers and wholesale (3).

In 2019, Saudi Arabia was ranked the second among the G20 countries in regards of the availability of radio spectrum awarded to operators for public mobile telecom services.

International undersea cables: EIG, I-ME-WE, FEA, MENA, SEA-ME-WE 3, SEA-ME-WE 4, FALCON, SAS-1, SAS-2, Gulf Bridge International, TATA TGN-Gulf Microwave radio relay to Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Yemen, and Sudan; Coaxial cable to Kuwait and Jordan; Satellite earth stations - 5 Intelsat (3 Atlantic Ocean and 2 Indian Ocean), 1 Arabsat, and 1 Inmarsat (Indian Ocean region) Radio broadcast stations: AM 43, FM 31, shortwave 2 (1998) Radios: 6.25 million (1997) Television broadcast stations: 117 (1997) Televisions: 5.1 million (1997) Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 22 (2005) Internet users: 30.25 million, 91% of the population (2018) [4] Country code (Top level domain): .sa Saudi Post An ADSL service in Saudi Arabia has become available since 2001.

The ISPs were previously connected through KACST (King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology), who was also responsible for DNS and filtering traffic.

Perhaps this was proved when STC submitted a request to enter neighboring Egypt as a provider and was refused due to lack of experience, staff, equipments and such.

[3] In August 2009 ONI classified Saudi Arabia as pervasive in the social and Internet tools areas, as substantial in political, and as selective in conflict.

[6] Access to websites affiliated with Iran, with Hezbollah, with Yemeni groups and associated with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood,[7] and information telling about the Holocaust[8] were blocked as well.