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Bezeq to Cut FR Prices!
Slashdot is not going to write about it (and even Maariv/Yediot/
HaArerz still didn't hear about that, as well as Reshet or Anashim
U'Machshevim...), but I think this scoop will interest many of you:
As you all know, Med-1 (or "Lev"), the new 20Gb international line
of Israel, will be completed in 2-3 months (currently, there is
only a 1Gb line, in which about half is spent on telephony). Since
international lines are the main cost of most of the ISPs, they
already began to cut the prices, and in the last months - even of
frame-relay connections (e.g. ISDN-NET cut the price of minimal
64Kb from $400 per month to $180). All of these facts are known to
all of us.
But the ISP's price is only one part of the image. The other part
is the payment to Bezeq ($110 per month for the minimal 64Kb, +$25
for low CIR - 19.2, etc.). Bezeq didn't change prices for a long
time (I think about two years!). The new line, does not have any
impact; moreover, it could even cause Bezeq to higher the prices,
because of the higher demand.
So here is the scoop that will save hundreds of Shqalim (per
month!) for many of us: In a way of "Hafuch Al Hafuch", Bezeq is
going to cut the prices of frame-relay DRASTICALLY, in September
1998. Bezeq believes that it will loose niches of the telephony
market because of the opening of the market for competition. So
Bezeq is going to invest in areas that nobody can compete against
it. One of these areas, is the infrastructure of Bezeq. Frame-relay
needs much infrastructure, and Bezeq believes that by lowering the
prices, most of the companies and the business in Israel will order
it, and nobody except for Bezeq will be able to supply the demand.
The following claim is only a speculation, but I think that there
is a strong connection between this plan of Bezeq, and its fight
against acTVnet: The main enemy of Bezeq in this revolutionary plan,
is the ability to order one frame-relay, and to multiplex it to more
than one customer, or to use radio "lines", and these two ways are
used by acTVnet in order to have prices which are much lower even in
relative to the prices Bezeq will have after September.
--
Eli Marmor