[bezeq marketing ADSL trial]
To All:
Interesting news this evening in today's Globes.
Bezeq, the national Israeli telco, is to begin a marketing ADSL trial of a few hundreds links. It will use both Orckit and Alcatel modems. This should lead to a following tender of some 10,000 links.
globes.co.il
Bezeq will shortly begin a trial in Tel Aviv for transmitting high speed multimedia and Internet broadcasts to subscribers, using ADSL modems supplied by Orckit and Alcatel. The companies supplying the content for the trials will be iNFOGATE, of the Binat group and Internet service provider ISDN-Net.
The trial will include several hundred subscribers connected to the Shikun Lamed exchange, who will receive content from ISDN-Net of the Koor group, another few hundred subscribers connected to the Ramat Aviv exchange, who will receive content from iNFOGATE of the Bynet group.
Bezeq has applied to the Ministry of Communications for approval for the trial, and is negotiating with the ministry's licensing division over the way it will be conducted. Approval should be received in the next few days. Ministry of Communications director-general Danny Rosenne told "Globes" in this context that the ministry was pressing Bezeq to provide ADSL services to subscribers, and there was no difference of opinion over this matter. He said the discussions, which currently relate to tariffs and range of services, were mainly technical, and would not delay approval.
ADSL is a technology that enables communications transmission on broad bandwidth of up to eight mbps, on the ordinary copper wires which form the basis of Bezeq's infrastructure. A special modem is installed in subscribers' home computers via which they receive very fast access to the Internet and various multimedia services.
In the past year, Bezeq has conducted a trial that included connections to the homes of a few dozen Bezeq employees in Holon, and the modem suppliers were Orckit of Israel and Alcatel of France. The trial did not include a commercial connection to the Internet.
In the marketing trial that will start shortly, subscribers will be provided with film, music and games services, on demand. The subscribers will pay $25-30 per month for the fast Internet connection, which will operate 24 hours a day.
The trial will also test customers' willingness to pay for viewing films, and the possibilities for storing files transmitted to them. Bezeq sees the ADSL service as the answer to the fast modems on cable television and satellite, in the context of competition in domestic telecommunications , which will begin in 1999.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on July 22, 1998 |
