[Israel] ISPs Respond to the CIR Regulation - What do they Promise?

Last month I reported about a new regulation in Israel (see "Carriers Must Disclose Broadband CIR" - here).

It turned out that this also applies to ISPs (the internet service in Israel is separated into the network access (DSL/Cable) and the ISP service), and yesterday I got an email from by ISP, Bezeq International, informing me about their "minimum commitment".

It was no surprise to learn that the CIR is 0.01 Mbps. Yes - 10 Kbps. A slow dial-up modem did better in the old days. It is symmetrical, though.

[Israel]: Why were ISPs Fined for not Promoting Free Parental Control Services?

 
The Israeli Minster of Communications, Gilad Erdan [pictured], announced [here, Hebrew] that two local ISPs - Cellcom (also an MNO) and Bezeq International were fined for not informing their customers properly on the free parental control service they must offer all subscribers.

ISPs must offer free filtering against harmful content, and among other things, send printed (!) flyers and announce it in their web sites. Cellcom was fined $83,000 and Bezeq International (39% of the ISP market) $47,000. Maximum fine is $161,000. See the detailed message (Hebrew) here and here.

While the regulation requires ISPs to offer a free and "effective" filtering service, they all offer a value-added service parental control. I am sure you'll be surprised to see that Bezeq's iKeeper (product of PureSight) service ($3/month) is promoted on the web site! Bezeq even has a video (see below) explaining it. If just 1,300 customers chose to use it instead of the free service, the fine was covered in one year.

My ISP Endorses Quota Policy

In order to get an internet service in Israel (over a fixed connection) one has to sign two service contracts - with the NSP (DSL - Bezeq, or Cable - Hot) and with an ISP (over 40). Since switching an ISP is as easy as changing a username in the connect command, the competition is very tough, and prices are very low (I pay $6/month for a 1.5Mbps service).

Nevertheless, each ISP has a "List Price" and a "negotiated" price (usually 50% off list), for which you need to commit to stay with the service at least year. So every year, you need to contact the ISP to re-negotiate the price - otherwise you'll be charged with the list price.

I did it yesterday - with Bezeq International (the ISP subsidiary of Bezeq, the DSL provider ; they claim for 36% ISP market share) and managed to reduce my monthly cost by $2. Then I got the Email confirmation, and was surprised to see a new condition - that was not there before and wasn’t discussed during the phone negotiation:  ".. with a volume of upto 65 Gbit (download and upload) a month".

Indeed they use "Bits" to specify volume (either they meant Bytes, or just wanted the number to be 8x bigger).

Calling customer service resulted with:

• First person saying that she "does now understand technical matters, that it has always been there, and there is no penalty if you exceed it."
   
• Escalation led to - the “Ministry of communication told us to do that 2 months ago (so it was not always there – but of course they don’t have to use this option), 65 “Gig” (not saying bits or bytes) is very high, and we do not enforce it. I can’t tell you how much you use. Maybe tech support can."
   
• Email to customer service has not been responded yet.