Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ) has said goodbye to NIS 76 million annually, after PIH, a company jointly owned by Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) and HOT Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT) almost completely stopped buying transmission services from it, sources inform "Globes". PHI has been trying for months to obtain discounts from Bezeq, because of the situation in the mobile telephony market, and even turned to the Antitrust Authority on the grounds that Bezeq had structured a tariff in such a way that in those regions where it knew there was no alternative to its services it raised the price, and in regions in which it knew there were other options available it was prepared to offer more competitive prices.
In the end, the parties did not reach agreement, and Partner and Hot Mobile decided to transfer all transmission to cellular sites through Hot Mobile, which hooked up sites wherever it could for the benefit of the venture. A small number of sites are left connected to Bezeq, but ultimately Bezeq lost substantial revenue in this process.
Cellcom also routes most of its traffic through its own sites, and only in certain areas does it use Bezeq's services. Bezeq subsidiary Pelephone emerges as the only mobile carrier that buys all its transmission services from Bezeq, and last year it received a discount on transmission prices.
This discount is now being examined closely, since it was only given to Pelephone and not to the other mobile carriers, which is problematic from an antitrust point of view.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 9, 2017
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