Cellcom ( he, סלקום) () is an Israeli telecommunications company. Founded in 1994, most of the company's business is centered on wireless service. Its current CEO is

Avi Gabbay Avraham "Avi" Gabbay ( he, אַבְרָהָם "אָבִי" גַּבַּאי, born 22 February 1967) is an Israeli businessman and politician. He was CEO of the telecommunications company Bezeq from 2007 to 2013, then entered politics. He served ...

, who was appointed on 4 January 2020. As of June 2016, Cellcom had 2.812 million subscribers.

History

Cellcom's entry into the Israeli market caused a revolution in wireless services in the country as it offered service at rates which were a fraction of those charged by

Pelephone Pelephone ( he, פלאפון, , lit. "wonder phone") is a mobile network operator in Israel, and also the first company to offer mobile telephony services in Israel. Due to this, the brand-name "Pelephone" became the genericized trademark for mobi ...

, which until Cellcom's launch held a monopoly on cellular services in Israel. Its launch was not without problems though and during 1995, Cellcom subscribers experienced widespread service disruptions of unknown origin. After an intensive investigation the cause was finally traced to a software bug in Motorola's MicroTAC Alpha handsets – which were ubiquitous on its network at the time.

Network

Cellcom initially operated a TDMA network nationwide in the 850 MHz band but after winning tenders for GSM-1800 frequencies it began offering GSM services, and eventually sought to replace the 850 MHz TDMA frequencies it owns with standard 900 MHz GSM frequencies but

and Partner petitioned the

Ministry of Communications A Communications Ministry or Department of Communications is a ministry or other government agency charged with communication. Communications responsibilities includes regulating telecommunications, postal services, broadcasting and print media. T ...

to deny this for technical reasons. This put Cellcom at a disadvantage since though most of its users had converted to GSM, they were not able to make use of the lower frequency's better in-building penetration and greater cell reach. With its entry into 3G wireless services, Cellcom demonstrated the first mobile video call in Israel. Since the beginning of 2006, Cellcom has been deploying a 3G UMTS-2100 network nationwide which by the end of 2007 covered than 87% of the population. Cellcom was the first in Israel to launch an HSDPA network (also called "Generation 3.5") nationwide. In 2011, Cellcom began to deploy UMTS services in the 850 MHz band, employing unused capacity in that frequency range since by then it had very few TDMA customers remaining. The Israeli Ministry of Communications has approved Cellcom's plan to shut down the TDMA-850 network on 31 December 2011. In August 2014, Cellcom launched an

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a telephone and mobile broadband standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement *** LTE Advanced Pro * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers produced by Compaq * ...

network in the 1800 MHz band.

Controversy and criticism

In 2009, Cellcom launched an ad campaign showing

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

soldiers playing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

across the Israeli West Bank barrier.

Ahmad Tibi Ahmad Tibi ( ar, أحمد الطيبي, , he, אַחְמָד טִיבִּי, , sometimes spelled Ahmed Tibi; born 19 December 1958) is a Palestinian-Israeli politician. The leader of the Ta'al party, he has served as a member of the Knesset si ...

, an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset, called on Cellcom to withdraw the commercial. A major service outage across the country on 1 December 2010 impacted on Cellcom's Q4 results. The company decided to refund customers with one week's worth of calls and messages although the customers never actually received their refund, says Daniel Martinez of ''The Jerusalem Post''. On 18 May 2021, Cellcom ceased its operations for one hour in support for Jewish-Arab coexistence and solidarity with Palestinians. Many thousands of Israelis cancelled their service in response.

Involvement in Israeli settlements

On 12 February 2020, the United Nations published a database of 112 companies helping to further

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

activity in the West Bank, including

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...

, as well as in the occupied Golan Heights. These settlements are considered illegal under international law. Cellcom was listed on the database on account of its "provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements" and "the use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes" in these occupied territories. On 5 July 2021, Norway's largest pension fund

KLP KLP may refer to: *Kommunal Landspensjonskasse, Norwegian mutual insurance company * KLP Eiendom, Norwegian real estate management company *KLP (musician), Australian singer-songwriter, record producer, DJ and radio personality * Kamasa language, IS ...

said it would divest from Cellcom together with 15 other business entities implicated in the UN report for their links to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

References

External links