Internet in Israel
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Broadband Internet in Israel has been available since the late 1990s in theory, but it only became practically accessible to most customers in 2001. By 2008, Israel had become one of the few countries with developed broadband capabilities across two types of infrastructure—cable and DSL—reaching over 95% of the population. Actual broadband market penetration stands at 77%, ranked 7th in the world. In 2010, Israel was ranked 26th in
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...
's Digital Economy Rankings. In 2022, Israel was ranked first for digital quality of life by Surfshark. Internet in Israel is provided through the phone, cable and direct
fiber to the home Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...
(FTTH) infrastructures, by
Bezeq Bezeq ( he, בזק) is an Israeli telecommunications company. Bezeq and its subsidiaries offer a range of telecom services, including fixed-line, mobile telephony, high-speed Internet, transmission, and pay TV (via Yes). History Bezeq was foun ...
, Hot,
IBC IBC is an initialism that can stand for: Broadcasting *Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation, Channel 13, Philippines * International Beacon Project, Worldwide network of radio propagation beacons *International Broadcast Centre *International ...
and
Partner Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to: Books * ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997 * ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928 * ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart * ''Partner'' (m ...
. Bezeq provides
DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
and FTTH; IBC and Partner provide FTTH services, while HOT provides its own cable Internet services, as well as FTTH through IBC. Speeds range from 15
mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...
on ADSL to 2.5
gbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...
on Bezeq's FTTH service.


History

In November 1990, the undersea cable EMOS-1, connecting Israel with Turkey, Greece and Italy, was deployed. This was the first Israeli-built undersea cable, and was augmented by CIOS in April 1994. Since then, other cables have been laid which have provided large capacity links between Israel and abroad. Until 1997, most domestic Internet traffic was routed either directly between ISPs, or through the Israeli universities' academic network operated by the IUCC. Since 1997, the Israel Internet Association has been responsible for operating the Israeli Internet Exchange (IIX) through which much of the domestic Internet traffic is routed. Broadband Internet has been available in Israel via
ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...
since the late 1990s in theory, but it only became practical to an average residential customer in 2001. This was enabled by a significant upgrade to the Internet infrastructure in 1999, at a cost of over a billion shekels. Since then prices have dropped considerably. Also in 2001, the Communications Law of 1982 was amended to allow the provision of broadband Internet through the cable infrastructure. Bezeq, the major local exchange carrier, began rolling out their
Next Generation Network The next-generation network (NGN) is a body of key architectural changes in telecommunication core network, core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services (voice, data, and al ...
(NGN) in 2009 with theoretical speeds up to 100 Mbit/s by using a combination of fiber to the curb (FTTC) and
ADSL2+ G.992.5 (also referred to as ADSL2+, G.dmt.bis+, and G.adslplus) is an ITU-T standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical downstream sync speed of 24 megabits per second ...
/
VDSL2 Very high-speed digital subscriber line (VDSL) and very high-speed digital subscriber line 2 (VDSL2) are digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies providing data transmission faster than the earlier standards of asymmetric digital subscriber li ...
technologies. Initial product offerings of their NGN were 10 Mbit/s and 15 Mbit/s download and 800 kbit/s upload speeds over ADSL2+, with a
best-effort Best-effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does ''not'' provide any guarantee that data is delivered or that delivery meets any quality of service. In a best-effort network, all users obtain best-effort service. Under ...
package of up to 100 Mbit/s available starting October 2010. According to Bezeq, NGN will have reached 90 percent of the households in Israel by late 2011 and offerings of 100 Mbit/s would be provided by 2012. Bezeq's main competitor Hot started its UFI service on October 21, 2009, with
DOCSIS Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...
3.0 technology. This allowed up to 100 Mbit/s initially, subsequently rising to 500 Mbit/s. In 2014, Israel Broadband Company (IBC) began laying the country's first FTTH infrastructure in
Beersheba Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...
, through its ''Unlimited'' venture. It was joined by
Partner Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to: Books * ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997 * ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928 * ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart * ''Partner'' (m ...
in 2017, and Bezeq in 2021. 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 ...
agreed that these infrastructure providers would not need to reach all Israeli households, but that they would contribute to a national fund to subsidize smaller companies that would deploy fiber to less economically viable areas. Noorcom is the first company to win a tender under this agreement, and it will deploy FTTH to certain Arab-majority areas. As of June 2021, 42% of Israel's total households were connected to FTTH infrastructure. In 2022, the historical separation between infrastructure providers such as Bezeq and Hot, and service providers, imposed by the regulator, is set to expire.


Connection specifications


Landline Internet

According to Ookla, as of May 2021 the average download speed in household broadband connections in Israel is 153 Mbit/s, while upload speeds average at 31 Mbit/s. According to data collected by M-Lab, as of May 2020 the average broadband download speed was 26 Mbit/s. Households connected to
fiber to the home Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...
infrastructure can utilize lines of up to 2.5 Gbit/s. Others have access to up to 500 Mbit/s over cable, and up to 200 Mbit/s over DSL. All DSL services require and use the
PPPoE The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packet ...
protocol, and cable modem connections generally operate over DHCP. For speed under 30 Mbit/sec, a cable user can select to use
VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...
s using the
PPTP The Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is an obsolete method for implementing virtual private networks. PPTP has many well known security issues. PPTP uses a TCP control channel and a Generic Routing Encapsulation tunnel to encapsulate PP ...
/
L2TP In computer networking, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is a tunneling protocol used to support virtual private networks (VPNs) or as part of the delivery of services by ISPs. It uses encryption ('hiding') only for its own control messages (usin ...
protocol.


Mobile Internet

The three largest mobile phone carriers,
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 mob ...
,
Partner Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to: Books * ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997 * ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928 * ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart * ''Partner'' (m ...
, and Cellcom, offer HSPDA service, typically 24 Mbit/s, over their respective 3G networks as well. Partner was the first provider to operate a consumer 4G ( LTE) network, reaching a theoretical symmetrical speed of 100Mbit/s. As of today, all major mobile carriers offer 4G
LTE Advanced LTE Advanced (LTE+) is a mobile communication standard and a major enhancement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. It was formally submitted as a candidate 4G to ITU-T in late 2009 as meeting the requirements of the IMT-Advanced standa ...
connectivity in the 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz frequencies, available in most populated regions in Israel, however these services are limited to about 20% of their maximum speeds since the Israeli Ministry of Communications has not completed allocating the full spectrum of the required frequencies. In September and October 2020, the three major carriers, plus Hot Mobile, received licenses and deployed their respective 5G networks.


ISP interconnectivity

Israel is connected abroad by three undersea cables:
MedNautilus MedNautilus is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking countries bordering the Eastern/Central Mediterranean Sea. It is a successor of the LEV system linking Cyprus, Israel and Italy. It has landing points in: #Catania, Sicily, ...
, owned by
Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...
, the
Bezeq International Optical System Bezeq International Optical System – JONAH – is a submarine telecommunication cable linking Tel Aviv and Bari. The system, which is fully owned by Israeli communications company Bezeq, spans 2,300 km of cable, and extended terrestrially f ...
, and Tamares Telecom's submarine cable. Domestic connectivity is provided by the Israel Internet eXchange (IIX), a central meeting point of the Internet Service Providers in Israel. As of 2021, three additional submarine cables are planned: two as part of Cinturion's Trans European Asia System (TEAS), connecting India, the Middle East and Europe; and one to connect Italy to India called Blue Raman, owned by
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
and Telecom Italia. The 160 tbps Quantum Cable will be added to the array of submarine communication cables that land in Israel, as part of the
EuroAsia Interconnector The EuroAsia Interconnector is a HVDC interconnector between the Greek, Cypriot, and Israeli power grids via the world's longest submarine power cable ( from Israel to Cyprus and from Cyprus to Greece, for a total of ). Connecting Kofinou, Cyp ...
.


Internet service providers

Due to competition laws, every DSL or cable Internet user has to pay separately to the infrastructure provider and to the Internet service provider (ISP). Infrastructure is provided by
Bezeq Bezeq ( he, בזק) is an Israeli telecommunications company. Bezeq and its subsidiaries offer a range of telecom services, including fixed-line, mobile telephony, high-speed Internet, transmission, and pay TV (via Yes). History Bezeq was foun ...
(via dial-up and
DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
) and Hot (cable Internet). All cellular companies (
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 mob ...
,
Partner Partner, Partners, The Partner, or, The Partners may refer to: Books * ''The Partner'' (Grisham novel), by John Grisham, 1997 * ''The Partner'' (Jenaro Prieto novel), 1928 * ''The Partners'' (book), a 1983 book by James B. Stewart * ''Partner'' (m ...
, Cellcom and Mirs) provide wireless Internet infrastructure, and also serve as Internet service providers. The three main Internet service providers are 012 Smile, 013 Netvision (including Internet Rimon) and Bezeq International. In 2006, the companies held market shares of 34, 33 and 30 percent, respectively, although these numbers include international phone calls. In all, as of August 2012, there were 43 companies with ISP licenses given by the Ministry of Communications.


Satellite

In Israel,
Gilat Satellite Networks Gilat Satellite Networks is a public company headquartered in Israel that develops and sells VSAT satellite ground stations and related equipment. Its shares are traded on the NASDAQ, NASDAQ Global Select Market and on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. ...
provides multi- gigabit per second broadband access to consumers and the defense industry by means of
high throughput satellite High-throughput satellite (HTS) is a communications satellite that provides more throughput than a classic FSS satellite (at least twice, though usually by a factor of 20 or more) for the same amount of allocated orbital spectrum, thus significan ...
s.


Internet censorship

In August 2009 no evidence of filtering was found by ONI in all areas.
Shas Shas ( he, ש״ס) is a Haredi religious political party in Israel. Founded in 1984 under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Israeli Sephardi chief rabbi, who remained its spiritual leader until his death in October 2013, it primarily ...
, a religious party in Israel, came up with an Internet filtering law, only making pornographic Internet site access permissive for users who identify themselves as adults and request not to be subject to filtering. In February 2008 the law passed in its first of three votes required, however, the government's law committee declined it. In 2010 and 2011,
Israel Police The Israel Police ( he, משטרת ישראל, ''Mišteret Yisra'el''; ar, شرطة إسرائيل, ''Shurtat Isrāʼīl'') is the civilian police force of Israel. As with most other police forces in the world, its duties include crime fightin ...
issued directives to all Internet service providers in Israel, including cellular providers, to block certain gambling websites. The ISPs complied with the order, even though its legality was unclear – both regarding the legality of using gambling sites in Israel, and the legality of the police ordering the blocking of websites. In 2012, the court ruled both that blocking websites, in principle, violated freedom of speech laws; and that the police directive itself was illegal.


See also

* Communications in Israel *
Media of Israel The mass media in Israel refers to print, broadcast and online media available in the State of Israel. The country boasts dozens of newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, which play an important role by the press in political, social and ...


References


External links


ISPs


099 Primo Communications

012 Smile Communications

013 Netvision

014 Bezeq International

018 XFone

019

HOT

Triple Cloud

FAST

Internet Rimon

Internet Binat


Other




2008 Gronau Commission Reportshort version
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