Cellcom (Israel)

Cellcom (Hebrew: סלקום‎) (TASE: CEL) is an Israeli telecommunications company.[3] Founded in 1994, most of the company's business is centered on wireless service. Its current CEO is Avi Gabay, who was appointed on 4th of January 2020.[4] As of June 2016, Cellcom had 2.812 million subscribers.[5]

Cellcom Israel Ltd.
סלקום ישראל בע"מ‎
TypePublic
TASE: CEL
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1994 (1994)
FounderDov Tadmor
Headquarters32°17′25″N 34°51′46″E,
Netanya
,
Israel
Area served
Israel
Key people
ProductsGSM, GPRS, UMTS, HSDPA, LTE
Revenue
  • ₪1,029 million (2016)[2]
  • ₪1,040 million (2015)
  • ₪140 million (2016)
  • ₪80 million (2015)
  • ₪44 million (2016)
  • ₪12 million (2015)
OwnerDIC (41.77%), Public (58.23%)
Number of employees
3600
Websitewww.cellcom.co.il

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, 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.[6] Nevertheless, its attractive rates led to a huge demand for the company's services and within a few years it had accumulated over a million subscribers.[7]

As of the end of the third quarter of 2012, it had around 3.4 million customers, the largest of the Israeli mobile providers in terms of customer base size. The vast majority of active voice clients are on its GSM network while data usage is spread across networks of different technologies..

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 Pelephone and Partner petitioned the Ministry of Communications 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.[8] 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 network in the 1800 MHz band.

Frequencies used on the Cellcom Network
FrequencyBand
number		ProtocolClass
1800 MHz3GSM/GPRS/EDGE2G
850 MHz5UMTS/HSPA3G
2100 MHz1
1800 MHz3LTE4G

Controversy

In 2009 Cellcom launched an ad campaign showing Israel Defense Forces soldiers playing football across the Israeli West Bank barrier.[9] Ahmad Tibi, an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset, called on Cellcom to withdraw the commercial.[10]

A major service outage across the country on December 1, 2010 impacted on Cellcom's Q4 results.[11] 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.[12]

See also

References
  1. "Cellcom Falls After Naming Stern to Replace Shapira as CEO". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2013-06-08.
  2. "Cellcom Israel Announces Second Quarter 2016 Results". cellcom.co.il. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  3. "Dun's 100 2012 - Largest Service & Trade Companies - by Operating Revenue". Retrieved 15 February 2013.
  4. "Avi Gabbay appointed Cellcom CEO". Jerusalem Post.
  5. "Cellcom Israel Announces Second Quarter 2016 Results". cellcom.co.il. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
  6. Fisher, Lawrence M. (14 August 1995). "Israelis and Others Feel the Sting of a Cellular Phone Bug". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-07.
  7. Ltd., Cellcom Israel. "Cellcom Israel Announces First Quarter 2015 Results". www.prnewswire.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2016-08-04.
  8. "Pelephone launches 3G network". TeleGeography. 2004-09-07. Archived from the original on 2014-08-26. Retrieved 2014-08-24.
  9. Seth Freedman, The Guardian, 20 July 2009, Cellcom's cynical commercial Archived 2017-08-18 at the Wayback Machine
  10. Haaretz, 15 July 2009, Ahmed Tibi joins opposition to Cellcom commercial Archived 2009-07-18 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Lubell, Maayan (2 Dec 2010). "UPDATE 1-Cellcom says network outage to impact Q4 results". Reuters. Archived from the original on 27 February 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
  12. Friedman, Ron (3 Dec 2010). "Mobile meltdown: Cellcom says sorry to customers". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 12 February 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
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