As if the "start-up nation" wasn't high-tech enough -- Bezek -- one of Israel's national telecommunication infrastructure companies, announced today they would be upgrading all their ADSL customers for free.Bezeq Infrastructure customers who have up to 4 mb/s download speed lines will be upgraded to 5 mb/s
Customers who have 5 or 10 mb/s download speed packages will be upgraded to 15 mb/s.
The upgrade will be free and automatic. To take advantage of the upgrade, customers will need to notify their ISP of the speed increase and pay an additional fee (though minor compared to infrastructure) for the increased bandwidth.
Gotta love this country! :)
hat-tip: Calcalist
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Last year, they wanted to upgrade me from 10 to 15. All I had to do was to go to their store and get a new router. (My current router is from them.)
ReplyDeleteSounded like more trouble than it was worth.
IsraelP; The reason for their free upgrade policy is that it takes router capacity into account.
ReplyDeletethe up to 5 MB/S routers can handle 5 MB, while the newer routers that handle 5-10 MB/S can handle 15 without any hardware upgrades needed.
Purim joke perhaps?
ReplyDeleteDoubt it....looks serious.
ReplyDeleteIs Israel that far behind?
ReplyDeleteI got in NYC with Sprint 4G LTE on my cellphone 25 down.
almost makes me feel like a freier for paying for 15mbps for the past couple of years...
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is because I'm an American, but I don't understand. Is the upgrade free and automatic, or do people have to inform their ISP and pay a fee?
ReplyDeleteHow exactly do you notify your Sapak of the fee upgrade? And if the Sapak is Bezeq Beinleumi, do you still need to notify them?
ReplyDeleteThis is most likely in response to the Antitrust Authority's findings on Bezeq: http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000821367
ReplyDelete@Shmuelp
ReplyDeleteIn Israel, you pay separately for the physical infrastructure (in this case the phone line) and for the service which uses it (the ISP). Bezeq is the former, and they are upgrading their equipment to give customers (unto) 15 MB on the line. However, to take advantage of that, you have to let the ISP know. Presumably they will want to charge for the additional capacity you will now be using.
Israel was touted for several years as one of the countries with the highest ratio of broadband connections, but then we stopped progressing and have fallen far behind the west where 20-30 and 100 were common years ago.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, Bezeq has done at least a couple of these free upgrades in the past. It saves them money by consolidating many minor speed packages up to the 5m/s
Avi,
Globes reported that some of the ISPs are allowing customers to upgraded for free and a couple are charging for the upgrade.