The Syrian Ministry of Communications retains governmental authority over the internet in Syria. Prior to the Syrian civil war, telecommunications in Syria were slowly moving towards liberalization, with a number of licenses awarded and services launched in the Internet service provision market. The initiative reflected the government's change in attitude towards liberalization, following its promise to the European Union to liberalize markets by 2010. All other forms of fixed-line communications are provided by the state-owned operator, Syrian Telecom (STE). Telecommunications system International dialing code: +963 Landline telephones in use in 2009: 4,069,000. Mobile phones in use in 2009: 11,696,000. The mobile operators are Syriatel and MTN Syria. There is mobile phone coverage in most parts of Syria providing access to 96% of the population. Call quality ranges from good to acceptable. Many international calls fail or are less clear over the mobile network compared to the landline network. Radio: 14 AM, 11 FM, and 1 shortwave stations in 1998. The radio operators are the state owned Syrian Arab Republic Radio and Al-Madina FM, the first private radio station, launched in March 2005. Other private radios are for example: Melody FM, Sham FM, Radio Arabesque, Mix FM Syria, Rotana FM, Fuse FM, Farah FM). Private radio stations can also transmit news or political content. Television: There are three television operators: the state owned ORTAS which operates five satellite channels (Syria TV, Syrian News Channel, Syrian Drama TV, Syrian Education TV, Noor Al-Sham), broadcasting in Arabic, English, and French and the private TV Stations like Sama TV or Massaya TV. There are no restrictions on the use of satellite receivers and many viewers watch pan-Arab TV stations. Roughly two-thirds of Syrian homes have a satellite dish providing access to foreign TV broadcasts. Opposition satellite stations broadcast from abroad; they include London-based Barada TV and Orient TV, which operates from the UAE. Internet Country code: The top level domain for Syria is .sy. There were 8,500,000 Internet users in Syria as of March 2021 for a 46.5% Internet penetration rate. Syria ranks 13th out of 14 countries in the Middle East region, just behind Iraq (59.6%) and ahead of Yemen (25.9%). The growth of Internet users has been rapid since 2016: {| !Year !! Internet users !! % of population |- |2000 | align=right | 30,000 | align=center | 0.2% |- |2002 | align=right | 220,000 | align=center | 1.2% |- |2005 |