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Fall 2000
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The Internet/Telecom Corner
Discovery in Israel: A New Technology for High-Speed Communication on the Internet
The Israeli Ministry of Communications, which has made itself "responsible" for the development of the communications sector in Israel, announced a significant discovery in early November: new ADSL technology will allow broadband Internet communication on Bezek's telephone lines. Bezek, of course, is the Israeli domestic communications monopoly.
Has Israel taken the world by surprise by moving to this new technology? It is no wonder we are known as the "Silicon wadi." But why aren't you impressed? Because the U.S. already has several types of DSL? You say that several years ago, this technology was already in use? That Israeli companies are actually at the forefront of developing this technology? Then why is this technology only now being discussed, never mind being implemented, in Israel? Doesn't the Israeli government justify its control over and supervision of the communications sector by saying it must look out for the consumer?
Israeli regulations are of course motivated by political considerations. Socialist governments say their regulations are meant to serve the interests of the consumer and the economy. Yet as a result of these specific regulations in Israel, the preliminary approval for high-speed Internet communications in Israel has only now been granted, late in the year 2000. To any outside observer, the situation might be comic, yet to any observer in Israel, it is tragic. And the government will say this delay was for the benefit of the consumer and the economy as a whole. This observer is left wondering how the regulatory authorities in Israel are not sufficiently embarrassed to admit that the state's becoming involved in the Israeli communications sector was a mistake.
Creating a Monopoly
Yet interest accrues on the original mistake. The minister of communications has attacked the Ministry of Finance and the attorney general for delaying entry by local cable television companies into the field of high-speed Internet communications in Israel. The claim of the minister that Bezek, the powerful domestic communications monopoly, will now become the monopolistic supplier of broadband Internet services, is certainly correct. One mistake follows another in state management of the Israeli Internet sector, and we in Israel are now viewing this latest mistake (actually crime) being made right before our eyes.
The fact that private (or semi-private, for nothing truly private grows in Israel) infrastructure companies that can compete with Bezek, especially cable television companies, are still forbidden to operate in the Internet sector, will allow Bezek to gain control of this important market while continuing to enjoy government protection from competition. The minister of communications may be right, but he should be aiming his arrows at his own ministry and his own predecessors, who first brought about this situation.
Perhaps sometime in the future, I will be able to inform our readers of another new technological advance in Israel: a new technology that allows high-speed Internet communications over cable infrastructure. The same infrastructure that has for years already brought television to homes in Israel will be able to handle high-speed Internet communications.
Don't
tell me you've already heard of this