Cellular carriers ordered to block roaming to Arab operators

Minister of Communications Moshe Kahlon: The practice whereby consumers pay overseas rates for calls and surfing near the border must stop.

23 July 12 19:33, Gad Perez

The Ministry of Communications has ordered cellular carriers to block roaming to cellular operators in neighboring countries for subscribers who have not requested such a service. The regulation will take effect within three months.

The order will end the practice whereby many subscribers are compelled to pay above the odds for calls where their handsets have roamed automatically to a neighboring country’s network because of a weaker signal from the domestic carrier. The phenomenon is well known and occurs by the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley near the Jordanian border and also near the Egyptian border.

In such instances the foreign carrier usually sends a message to warn that the Israeli phone is operating on an overseas network. Subscribers who do not notice the warning or make calls anyway then end up paying a far higher rate.

The Ministry of Communications has now set that while it is possible to make calls of a reasonable quality from an Israeli carrier, even if an overseas carrier is available, the customer will receive service from the Israeli company.

Minister of Communications Moshe Kahlon said, “The practice whereby consumers pay overseas rates for calls and surfing near the border must stop.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on July 23, 2012