globes 24-9-2012
Cellcom seeks access to Bezeq installations
Cellcom wants to expand its range of products that will be included in the wholesale market.
A few days after Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) and Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) agreed on what the new wholesale market will look like and submitted a service portfolio to the Ministry of Communications, Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE:CEL; TASE:CEL) has made an initiative of its own, and is submitting a service portfolio for using Bezeq infrastructures through its communications conduits. Cellcom also submitted another portfolio for dark fiber (fiber which Bezeq installs in communications conduits, part of capacity of which can be allotted to competitors).
Cellcom wants to expand its range of products that will be included in the wholesale market. It believes that it must be based on the sum of its components, and not on a particular service as Partner and Bezeq agreed on. Cellcom’s objective is to reach Bezeq’s communications cabinets, and in some cases to place its own communications cabinet next to Bezeq’s cabinets, or to use Bezeq cabinets and to reach customers from them.
After the holidays, the engineering forum of all the carriers will meet to discuss the structure of the new market, in order to reach understandings, which the Ministry of Communications will make binding on the market.
Sources inform ”Globes” that Cellcom and Bezeq have made progress in their negotiations, and that the climate has improved, after weeks of tensions caused by Cellcom’s demand for an agreement on all components of the wholesale market, while Bezeq wanted a separate agreement for each service.
Even if understandings are reached on the structure of the wholesale market, ultimately the financial negotiations are what is important, and they will probably take a long time.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on September 24, 2012