Bezeq

History

Bezeq was founded in 1984 as a government-owned corporation, taking over the provision of telephony services in Israel, which were previously run directly by the Ministry of Communications. The drive for creating the company was the highly bureaucratic and inefficient nature of the government ran service, requiring customers to wait several years until they got a phone line installed.

In the late 1980s Anat Hoffman founded a group, Bezeq-Afflicted Clients Association, to protect the interests of Bezeq customers. A major complaint was that Bezeq refused to offer customers itemized bills, so they had no assurance they were paying for services they actually received. National hearings were held where customers had the opportunity to share their grievances against Bezeq. Hoffman notes that of 46 cases handled through small claims court, the consumers prevailed against Bezeq in 43. Within two years of the well publicized campaign for itemized bills, they were finally offered to consumers.

In 1994, Bezeq acquired 50% ownership of Pelephone, Israel's first mobile communication company, in 2004 acquired full ownership of the company from its co-owner Motorola.

In 1998, Bezeq co-founded Yes, a direct-broadcast satellite provider, which began broadcasting in July 2000.

In January 2012, Bezeq International Optical System was completed, a submarine telecommunication cable linking Tel Aviv and Bari in Italy. The system spans 2,300 km of cable, and extended terrestrially from Bari through Interoute's network to major European cities.

In April 2012, Bezeq acquired full ownership of Walla! Communications, Israel's leading Internet portal, which has more than 2.5 Million monthly unique users. Bezeq operates the B144 directory enquiries and yellow pages brand.

In February 2015, Bezeq acquired full ownership of Yes, Israel's leading television provider, for ₪680 million.

Loss of monopoly status

In 1994, Cellcom a new Mobile communication company was founded, breaking Pelephone's monopoly in this area. In 1999, a third competitor, Partner Communications Company, was established.

In 1997, two new competitors were introduced in international calling services (Barak and Golden Lines), and Bezeq was obliged to establish a new subsidiarity to compete with them named Bezeq International.

Until the mid-first decade of the 21st century when it was owned by the Israeli government, Bezeq had a monopoly on landline telephony and Internet access infrastructure (ADSL VDSL2). Though still the most dominant provider of telephone services, it has had competition from the sole cable provider in the country (since September 2006), Hot, which offers a cables based telephone and internet access services as of 2005, and with 012 Smile and more recently 013 netvision and Orange.

Privatization

On May 9, 2005, Israel's Government Companies Authority, headed by Eyal Gabbai privatized Bezeq when 30% of its shares were sold by the state to the Apax-Saban-Arkin investment group for $972 million. The cellular communications provider Pelephone is a fully owned subsidiary of Bezeq. Bezeq is also the largest shareholder in D.B.S. Satellite Services (1998) Ltd., known by its trademark name, Yes, the satellite (DBS) television provider in Israel.

In April 2010, the controlling interest in Bezeq, held by the Apax-Saban-Arkin group, was sold to B Communications, a subsidiary of Shaul Elovitch's Eurocom Group, for $1.75 billion.

Operations

The company’s fixed-line domestic communications segment offers domestic carrier services, including basic telephony, Internet infrastructure and access services, and transmission and data communications services. This segment also provides infrastructure, transmission, billing, leasing space, and related services for other communications operators, operates and maintains radio transmitters, carries out set-up and operation works of networks or sub-networks for various customers and offers virtual private networks, data center, and search engine services.

As of December 2012 Bezeq has:

Subsidiaries