Telecommunications in Western Sahara include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

claims the

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...

territory and administers Moroccan law through Moroccan institutions in the estimated 85 percent of the territory it controls. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario), an organization that has sought independence for the former Spanish territory since 1973, disputes Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over the territory. Because of this long running dispute, many traditional telecommunication statistics are not reported separately for the Western Sahara.

Radio and television

Radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...

s: ** Morocco's state broadcaster,

Société Nationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision The National Company of Radio and Television ( ar, الشَرِكَة الوَطَنِيَّة لِلْإِذَاعَة وَالتَلْفَزَة, ''; french: Société nationale de radiodiffusion et de télévision, SNRT''; , ') is the public b ...

(SNRT, formerly RTM) operates a radio service from Laayoune (2008);"Communications: Western Sahara"
''World Factbook'', U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, 10 January 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2014. ** Polisario-backed medium wave (AM) and shortwave radio stations are on the air (2008); ** Unofficial amateur radio stations occasionally operate from Polisario territory. This is classified as the

DXCC An amateur radio operating award is earned by an amateur radio operator for establishing two-way communication (or "working") with other amateur radio stations. Awards are sponsored by national amateur radio societies, radio enthusiast magazine ...

entity "Western Sahara". Operators use callsigns with the prefix "S0"; an informal identifier that has not been issued by the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

. *

Radios Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

: 56,000 (1997). *

Television stations A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...

: Morocco's state broadcaster, SNRT, operates a TV service that is relayed in the territory (2008). The Polisario-owned territory operates a minor television service known by the name of

RASD TV RASD TV is the Sahrawi state-owned satellite and terrestrial public-service television broadcaster. Its offices are located in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf Province, Algeria. History The channel was established in February 2004, bu ...

. *

Television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

s: 6,000 (1997).

Telephones

* Calling code: +212 *

International call prefix An international call prefix, international dial-out code or international direct dial code (IDD code) is a trunk prefix that indicates an international phone call. In the dialling sequence, the prefix precedes the country calling code (and, fur ...

: 00 * Main lines: about 2,000 lines in use (1999 estimate). * Mobile cellular: Unknown. * Telephone system: sparse and limited system; tied into

's system by microwave radio relay,

tropospheric scatter Tropospheric scatter, also known as troposcatter, is a method of communicating with microwave radio signals over considerable distances – often up to and further depending on frequency of operation, equipment type, terrain, and climate fact ...

, and

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

(2008). * Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

) linked to Rabat, Morocco (2008).

Internet

Top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

: none, as a disputed territory no country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is assigned, however,

.eh Western Sahara is a disputed territory, and as such it has no country code top-level domain ( ccTLD). .eh is reserved for this purpose, and will be assigned if the Western Sahara conflict results in an agreement between the Sahrawi Arab Democrat ...

is reserved for this purpose, and will be assigned if the competing claimants reach an agreement. *

Internet users The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

: unknown (2012)."Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2013, retrieved 22 June 2013 * Fixed broadband: unknown (2012)."Fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. *

Wireless broadband Wireless broadband is telecommunications technology that provides high-speed wireless Internet access or computer networking access over a wide area. The term comprises both fixed and mobile broadband. The term broadband Originally the word ...

: unknown (2012)."Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 2012"
Dynamic Report, ITU ITC EYE,

. Retrieved on 29 June 2013. * Internet hosts: no hosts explicitly associated with Western Sahara (2012). * IPv4: no addresses allocated (2012).Select Formats
, Country IP Blocks. Accessed on 2 April 2012. Note: Site is said to be updated daily. *

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

s (ISPs): NA

Internet censorship and surveillance

There is no indication that Internet access in the territory differs from that in internationally recognized Morocco, which was generally open."Western Sahara"
''Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012'', Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 17 April 2013. Retrieved 2 February 2014. Morocco was listed as engaged in selective Internet filtering in the social, conflict/security, and Internet tools areas and as little or no evidence of filtering in the political area by the

OpenNet Initiative The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...

(ONI) in August 2009."ONI Country Profile: Morocco"
OpenNet Initiative, 6 August 2009 Freedom House listed

's "Internet Freedom Status" as "Partly Free" in its 2013 ''Freedom on the Net'' report."Morocco country report"
''Freedom on the Net 2013'', Freedom House. Retrieved 19 October 2013. Morocco considers the part of the territory that it administers to be an integral component of the kingdom with the same laws and structures regarding civil liberties,

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

, and

economic rights Economic, social and cultural rights, (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Econ ...

. Moroccan law prohibits citizens from criticizing Islam or the institution of the monarchy or to oppose the government’s official position regarding territorial integrity and Western Sahara. Saharan media outlets and bloggers practice self-censorship on these issues, and there are no reports of government action against them for what they write. Human rights and Sahrawi bloggers affiliated with leftist political groups assume that authorities closely monitor their activities and feel the need to hide their identities.

References

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External links