Minister of Communications, Dr. Shlomo Karhi: “Communication services are a daily and essential infrastructure, and for negligence and harm to the public, a price is paid. The Ministry of Communications under my leadership will continue to monitor violations of the license terms by communication companies, and in particular to open the market to competition and a wider variety of service providers.”
In supervision tests conducted by the Ministry during three different periods, it was found that the company consistently exceeded license instructions: both the maximum allowed average waiting time for human response and the maximum rate of calls where the wait exceeded 6 minutes.
In all call centers examined and in all periods, no case was found where the company met the requirements set for it.
This is also a repeated violation. In a previous supervision process regarding response times, the company was found to be exceeding instructions, and even now – despite some improvement in the data – it remained in violation of the regulation in all periods examined. Most of the company’s claims, including regarding lack of proportionality, effects of the security situation, and damage to its revenues, were examined and rejected.
The Ministry intends to publish in the coming days the data from the examination of response times of communication companies.
The Ministry of Communications will continue to act with determination to enforce licenses and regulations to ensure proper, accessible, and fair service. Recently, the Ministry increased the enforcement of reporting obligations and initiated supervision proceedings against several companies that did not meet these obligations.
Reporting is the basis for the Ministry’s ability to act, and a company that does not operate according to information requirements will face uncompromising enforcement.