Cellcom (Israel)
Encyclopedia
Cellcom is a major Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i telecommunications company. Founded in 1994, most of the company's business is centered around wireless service. Cellcom was the first to market mobile phones with Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 menus.

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
Pelephone
Pelephone is an Israeli-based telecommunications company, founded in 1986 as a joint venture between Motorola and Tadiran, today owned by Bezeq. It was the first company to offer mobile phone services in Israel. Due to this, the brand-name "Pelephone" became the genericized trademark for mobile...

, which until Cellcom's launch held a monopoly on cellular services in Israel. Its launch was not without problems though and during 1995, Cellcom experienced major network outages due to a software bug in Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...

 Alpha handsets. 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.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2010, 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.

The company initially operated a TDMA
Digital AMPS
IS-54 and IS-136 are second-generation mobile phone systems, known as Digital AMPS . It was once prevalent throughout the Americas, particularly in the United States and Canada. D-AMPS is considered end-of-life, and existing networks have mostly been replaced by GSM/GPRS or CDMA2000...

 network nationwide in the 850Mhz band but after winning tenders for GSM-1800 frequencies it began offering GSM services.

Cellcom eventually sought to replace the 850Mhz TDMA frequencies it owns with standard 900 MHz GSM frequencies but Pelephone and Partner (Orange) 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 user of the lower frequency's better in-building penetration and greater cell reach.

With its entry into 3G wireless services Cellcom demoed the first mobile video call in Israel. Since the beginning of 2006, Cellcom began 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 850Mhz band, employing unused capacity in that frequency range since 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 mid-2006, Cellcom received a license to offer terrestrial domestic telephony services using the national prefix 073-2. The service is aimed at mainly large businesses. The license allows for advanced wired telephony services, Internet services and high speed data transmission over its fiber optic network which is spread out throughout the country.

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In 2009 Cellcom launched a controversial ad campaign showing Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

 soldiers playing football (soccer) across the Israeli West Bank barrier
Israeli West Bank barrier
The Israeli West Bank barrier is a separation barrier being constructed by the State of Israel along and within the West Bank. Upon completion, the barrier’s total length will be approximately...

. Among others Ahmad Tibi
Ahmad Tibi
Ahmad Tibi is an Arab-Israeli politician and leader of Ta'al , an Arab party in Israel. He currently serves as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. He was elected on a joint ticket with the United Arab List to serve in Israel's parliament, the Knesset...

, an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

, called on Cellcom to withdraw the commercial.

2010 service outage

On December 1, 2010, Cellcom faced a major service outage across the country. Cellcom reported the network outage to impact the Q4 results. 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.

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