Israel lacks behind the world in deploying stationary infrastructure - below the EU average

An internal report by Dr. Ofer Raz-Dror, VP of Economics at the Ministry of Communications, presents a rather bleak picture of the country's infrastructure. Israel lacks significantly behind the world in deploying stationary infrastructure and is below the EU average, very far from the Scandinavian leaders. , The rate of fiber-connected homes - which has become a world standard - is less than 10%.
Israel is also lagging behind the world in the deployment of cellular networks, when in the low tide it dropped to 94th place in the world in the average speed of cellular surfing, before it was able to adopt the fifth generation technology.
But there is also encouraging news: the dusting of the required reforms made in the past year has begun the recovery campaign of the country that claims to be a start-up nation in front of the world.
It is difficult to underestimate the influence of the political factor on the state of the local media market. The dissolution of the Knesset in December 2018 and the run-up to the elections put Israel in a spin of three consecutive election campaigns and a transitional government with limited capabilities. Only in May 2020 was the Netanyahu-Gantz government formed with the permanent appointment of a communications minister in the form of Yoaz Handel, who, together with the ministry's director general Liran Avishar Ben-Horin, began to drive the reforms that awaited them.
Even before that, the Ministry of Communications suffered from almost complete paralysis under the communications ministers who served in it. In February 2017, after the disclosure of the 4000 case, the then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left his position as Minister of Communications and Tzachi Hanegbi was appointed acting director, a position he held for only three months.
Ayub was replaced by Ayub Kara, who served in the position for two years before MK Dudi Amsalem took office, who served in it until the formation of the Netanyahu-Gantz government. Amsalem did little to deal with the ministry's issues and when required to do so, such as signing the agreement to sell control of Bezeq to the Searchlight Fund, he delayed claiming that he wanted the attorney general's approval before signing so that he would not be summoned for questioning.
The importance of stable, high-quality infrastructure has proven critical over the past year, as during the Corona crisis, activities that the public was accustomed to doing in the physical space (work and study) moved into cyberspace through meeting apps such as zoom. Without a stable and quality infrastructure it is difficult to maintain such interactions.
Just last week, the Bank of Israel published a plan to accelerate growth in the economy, citing the promotion of the transition to high-speed communications infrastructure as one of the factors that will make it possible to accelerate growth.
The Bank of Israel stated that "the use of communication infrastructure is increasing in the workplace and in daily life - for communication with other businesses and customers, for remote work, for consumption of services and for operating additional technology-dependent infrastructures. Communication infrastructures are also essential "Autonomous cars, digital innovation, remote work, cloud computing, peripheral approximation, digitization of public services and more." The Bank of Israel also emphasized the need to set long-term goals and remove barriers.
Raz-Dror's report from the Ministry of Communications focuses on the two main communications infrastructures in Israel: the mobile communications, which include the deployment of cellular antennas in Israel by the licensees (Pelephone, Cellcom and Expon and HOT and Partner) and the fixed communications that include Bezeq and the old copper cable infrastructure - HOT and the fiber-optic infrastructure deployed throughout the country by Bezeq, Partner and IBC (in which Cellcom and HOT are partners).
The report examined, among other things, the state of cellular networks, which only recently began upgrading frequencies to generation 5. The Ministry of Communications noted that the process was delayed due to requests for clarification with the companies and an administrative petition to stop the frequency tender, which was rejected only in February 2020.
As mentioned, the cellular networks only recently started upgrading the frequencies to generation 5. The pricing process of the frequencies (the procedure in which the companies compete with each other in submitting bids) was held only in August last year, although the main tender for 4th and 5th generation frequencies were published in December 2018.