Bezeq CEO slams Treasury

‘Who pays the costs of structural separation? The consumer’

Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication CEO Stella Handler has taken on the Finance Ministry, which opposes the decision of the Ministry of Communications to allow Bezeq to cancel the structural separation between it and its subsidiaries.

“Today, we saw an unprecedented attack on Bezeq, at the center of which is a letter from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Communications. The Ministry of Finance opposes the Ministry of Communications’ decision to allow Bezeq to offset the losses accumulated in Yes. The Ministry of Finance claims that ‘the conditions are not yet ripe for removing the structural separation’, wrote Handler in a Facebook post Monday night.

“In fact, the Ministry of Finance knows that at stake is an archaic regulatory tool that no other regulator in the world uses, and recognizes that it needs to be changed. The Budgets Commissioner in the Ministry of Finance himself says that the structural separation ought to be abolished, but that this should be done gradually in order to allow conditions to ripen. So when exactly will conditions ripen?”

In her post, Handler complains of the cost of structural separation, whereby Bezeq and its subsidiaries are not allowed to cooperate to offer packages of services.

“Today, Bezeq is the only telecommunications company in the world, the only dinosaur that sells fixedline services separately from other services such as television and internet. This makes no sense and the first to pay the price is the consumer. After all, the separation has costs, and who pays them? The consumer. Not to mention that the consumer could obtain service much more conveniently, and competition would be created against Hot’s triple package.”