Partner: Ministry strengthens Bezeq, Hot duopoly

In a letter by Partner CEO Haim Romano to Communications Ministry chief Eden Bar-Tal, Partner accuses Bezeq and Hot of employing anti-competition policies.

28 March 13 17:08, Gad Perez

Orange franchisee Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) is demanding that the Ministry of Communications enforce the hearing from less than a year ago to cancel the giga agreement to solve the market failure. At issue are payments that Internet service providers (ISPs) pay Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) and Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT.B1) for using their infrastructures.In a letter sent by Partner CEO Haim Romano to Ministry of Communications director general Eden Bar-Tal, Partner accuses Bezeq and Hot of employing anti-competition policies. Partner says that non-cancellation of the ISPs’ payments effectively gives Bezeq and Hot a green light to subsidize their campaigns to increase Internet access speeds by the other ISPs.

Bezeq is upgrading to 15 Mbps for all customers, and Hot is upgrading to 100 Mbps for triple play subscribers.

Both Bezeq and Hot have reduced the ISPs’ payments to an average of NIS 15,000 per gigabyte (Hot) and NIS 8,000 per gigabyte (Bezeq). Partner claims that this is a tactical move because the upgrades compel the ISPs to pay more for the growing Internet use. In effect, the Bezeq-Hot duopoly is strengthened at the expense of the ISPs, which cannot refrain from providing their subscribers with faster Internet access.

Partner also claims that the damage to it and the ISPs increases so long as the wholesale market is not implemented, allowing the wholesale purchase of infrastructure services from Bezeq and Hot. Partner concludes by saying that this is a critical decision for the carrier, because it wants to enter the television market, and because it is recording a sharp reduction in revenue due to the intense competition in the mobile market.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on March 28, 2013

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013