The Ministry of Communications estimates that Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) will lose 600,000 broadband Internet and telephony customers in the next four years. The figure appears in an opinion by the ministry’s deputy director for economics and Prof. Reuven Gronau, which was appended to a document in the hearing on the wholesale market. The hearing was held last week and put on the ministry’s website on Sunday.The opinion states that, following long-term trends in which consumers prefer keeping only a mobile phone or prefer cheaper telephony lines, Bezeq is liable to lose 90,000 additional customers who only have a telephone landline. The loss of landline business customers will be minimal.

The opinion estimates that Internet prices will fall by 30% and that telephony prices will fall by 20%. After four years of competition in the wholesale sector, Bezeq’s annual landline revenue will be NIS 1.3 billion.