Israel News

Israel Through the Lens

Featured Posts

The Free Market Road Show Arrives to Jerusalem on May 18, 2015

By

The 8th Annual Free Market Road Show tours from April 13th to May 27th through 35 capitals in Europe and Caucasus – from Scandinavia to Turkey, from Spain to the Ukraine. The tour is organized by the Austrian Economics Center (AEC), in cooperation with over 60 leading think-tanks and universities across Europe and the Caucasus, and in association with international partners such as the Liberty Fund, Global Philanthropic Trust, European Students for Liberty, Ruefa and the F.A. v. Hayek Institut. On May 18, 2015 the Free Market Road Show arrives to Jerusalem.

Western Wall, Wailing Wall or Kotel, Old City of Jerusalem

Switching from Orange to Golan Telecom

By

Out of habit I stuck with the old plan of the Israeli cellular service provider Orange. According to this plan originating from 2000 I paid only for outcoming calls, no fixed monthly fee. When I switched from my old Nokia to new smartphone I got message from Orange that mobile data service is enabled for my account. I tried it once, it was so excruciatingly slow that I dropped any thought about using it. Still there was some passive data exchange from applications running on my smartphone and in the end of month I found that Orange charged me NIS 150 for about 40 MB, an outrageous rate. A brief conversation with smirking and rude Orange service representative only strengthened my impression that customer traps are part of Orange dubious service practices. I immediately closed account in Orange and switched to low-cost Golan Telecom plan, NIS 10/month:

9.90 ₪
100 minutes to israel and 55 countries
Unlimited SMS
100MB internet browsing
Tariff per minute: 0.18 ₪
MMS: 0.02 ₪
Mb: 0.09 ₪
One time handling fee: 49.00₪
Does not include premium numbers
SMS- up to 300 different numbers each billing cycle.

Orange’s mobile data rate NIS 4.069 per MB is about 40 times higher than that of Golan Telecom. Orange’s mobile phone rate (Tariff per minute: 0.904 ₪) is about 5 times higher than that of Golan Telecom.

Later on I switched to more expensive Golan plan (NIS 100) including browsing abroad and free calls from abroad to Israel – so far, so good. I tested it in Germany and Netherlands, no complaints on service, no overcharges.