Most Israelis prefer to use their cellular phone over landline phones even while making calls from home, a poll conducted for the Bezeq telecommunications provider showed. The poll was conducted by the TNS Teleseker research company, among 463 respondents of the adult Jewish population in Israel that own at least one mobile phone. The poll also showed that the general public believes phone calls from a mobile phone to a mobile phone are cheaper than calls from a landline phone to a mobile one. In response to the question: “When making phone calls from home, what means do you usually choose in order to call a mobile phone?” 53.9% of the respondents said they used their mobile phone.
Meanwhile, only 40.5% of the respondents said they preferred to use a landline phone while at home.
When asked what they thought was a cheaper way to reach mobile phones within Israel, 46.5% of the respondents said calls between two mobile phones were cheaper, while 37.3% said landline to mobile phones would cost them less.
In addition, 14.5% said they didn’t know and 1.6% said the prices were identical.
In reality it is generally cheaper to make a call from a landline to a mobile phone, mainly because the connectivity fee set by the Ministry of Communications for landline to mobile phone calls is lower than that set for mobile to mobile phone calls.
Bezeq and HOT landline providers offer a rate of 34.22 agorot (about 8 cents) per minute for calls from a landline to a mobile phone, which is lower than most raters for calls between mobile phones.
The connectivity fee set by the Ministry of Communications shows that calls from a mobile phone to a landline is also more expensive than calls from landline to mobile.
A call from a mobile phone to a landline costs the company from which the call is made between 25 agurot and 35 agurot (6 cents to 8 cents), while a call from a landline phone to a mobile phone costs the company 23.27 agurot (about 5 cents).
While rates and connectivity fees make it generally cheaper to dial from landline phones in all cases, mobile phone companies do offer a number of special deals that may still make it cheaper for the caller to use their service, even at home.
One example is a package offered by Cellcom, in which, for the monthly fee of NIS 14.9 ($3.7), the caller gets 300 minutes free of charge for all calls with family members, meaning mobile to mobile phone calls between family members will cost the user 4.9 agurot (about 1 cent) per minute.
Orange offers a package that includes 200 minutes to all destinations and 200 SMS or MMS messages for the price of NIS 119 ($29.4) per month, which comes down to 30 agurot (about 7 cents) per minute.
{Ynet/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Newscenter}
