In line with a new regulation from the Ministry of Communications, which takes effect on June 9, 2013, cellular telephone providers are now compelled to get one’s number up and running within 30 minutes. A wired phone line must be up and running within an hour of changing provider.

To date, the cellular changeover was to have been accomplished within three hours but in actuality, this was not the case. In most cases, it took considerably longer, sometimes days. Some believe this is done intentionally by phone companies to prevent the service one is leaving from making a counter offer to the subscriber. As a result, subscribers moving to a new provider often find themselves without cellular service for days, cut off from the old provider while the new service fails to kick in. Communications Ministry officials plan to enforce the new regulation.

Officials add that since the beginning of 2013, there has been a 6% decline in the number of people changing cellular telephone providers. The difficulty in doing so as described is believed responsible at least in part for the decline.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)