Partner to conduct Hot coaxial network trial
Cable company Hot has strongly objected to the trial, and intends to do all it can to frustrate it.
The Ministry of Communications is allowing Orange franchisee Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR) to conduct a technology trial on the coaxial network of Hot Telecommunication Systems Ltd. (TASE: HOT.B1). This is the first time that the ministry has permitted such a trial on a coaxial network at the request of a mobile carrier. Cable company Hot has strongly objected to the trial, and intends to do all it can to frustrate it.
In the trial, Partner wants to test the feasibility of hooking up to Hot’s network by placing its own communications boxes proximate to Hot’s boxes and attach the cables to the customer’s home. Hot has argued for years that such a hook-up is not technologically feasible, and does not exist anywhere in the world, because of the way its network is built.
Hot says that such a hook-up, which means breaking up its network into sections, or unbundling, will result in the cannibalization of its network by carriers, and will severely damage Hot and its customers. Hot has agreed to allow other carriers to use its network as part of the reform that the Ministry of Communications is trying to lead to create competition in broadband. Hot says that this should be established only on the basis of the existing structure, in which it collects all the Internet traffic from customers for an Internet service provider, which is hooked up to Hot’s network at a single point.
Partner rejects Hot’s argument, saying that it has an engineering option which states that this can be done without affecting Hot at all. Partner’s application has been waiting for the Ministry of Communications’ approval for months, but only after the change in the ministry’s director general did acting director general Maimon Shmila decide to sign the license for the test.
Partner will now ask Hot to conduct the test. If Hot refuses, the Ministry of Communications will have to decide whether to force it to do so.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on July 23, 2013