Editing Telecommunications in Israel (section)

==1990s==
[[File:זהו זה מלחמת המפרץ מתכננים לשלוח סקאד לישראל.jpg|thumb|A comedy about Iraqi missile launchers during [[Gulf War]] at the [[Zehu Ze!]] TV program]]

The 1990s was a decade of marked change in the Israeli telecommunications industry, and massive developments in [[Cellular network|cellular communications]], Internet, [[commercial television]], and multichannel television platform such as cable television and satellite television.
* The [[Second Israeli Broadcasting Authority]] was established and the first Israeli commercial channel – [[Channel 2 (Israel)|Channel 2]] – began to broadcast on 4 November 1993, which began the era of [[Audience measurement|television ratings]] in Israel. The original agreement was that the broadcasting days of the channel were distributed among three broadcasting companies in order not to have a direct competition between them.{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}}
* The multichannel television platform in Israel began when the cable TV companies were established. Every company had a monopoly in a certain area of the country (according to a franchise given by the [[Ministry of Communications (Israel)|Ministry of Communications]]). For the first time, the Israeli public became exposed to tens of foreign channels from other countries around the world (which overtook the place of the [[JRTV|Jordanian]] and [[Middle East Television|Lebanese]] channels which were the only foreign channels received in Israel until then), and to new local channels on the cables: The children channel, [[Sport 5|the sports channel]], [[Hot 3 (Israel)|the family channel]], and the films channel. The move brought to almost total elimination of the pirated cable broadcasting in the country.
* The Israeli [[pirate radio]]s experienced prosperity which happened in tandem with the establishment of legal regional radio stations, and to the reorganization of the military radio stations in 1993 (the establishment of [[Galgalatz]] in tandem with the [[Israel Defense Forces Radio]], instead of the former two stations "Army 1" and "Army 2"). In spite of all the changes in the field of radio broadcasting, this medium lost the majority of the listeners ratings during the nineties, and by the end of the decade, the radio was considered to be a communication medium which had few listeners in relatively to the television.
* Although the majority of homes in Israel still receive daily newspapers nowadays, in this decade many main newspapers were closed, including ''[[Hadashot]]'', ''[[Al HaMishmar]]'', and ''[[Davar]]''.
* In the mid-nineties, Internet and emailing became prevalent in Israel. Back then, the connection to the Internet had to be done by means of [[dial-up Internet access]] to the local Internet service providers such as [[013 NetVision|NetVision]] and [[012 Smile|Internet Gold]].
* In 1994, [[Cellcom (Israeli company)|Cellcom]] joined as the second cellular network in Israel after [[Pelephone]]. At the start, the company experienced different problems with the devices they provided, when their users experienced many disconnections and intermittence during conversations.<ref name="CellcomPhoneBug">{{cite news | title= Israelis and Others Feel the Sting of a Cellular Phone Bug | url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5DC1130F937A2575BC0A963958260 | newspaper = The New York Times | access-date=7 June 2008 | first=Lawrence M. | last=Fisher | date=14 August 1995}}</ref>
* In 1998, [[Bezeq]]'s monopoly on international calling services was ended with the addition of two other companies, [[012 Smile|Golden Lines]], and [[013 NetVision|Barak]], who also began to offer international calling services . The activity of Bezeq in this field passed to its subsidiary [[Bezeq International]].
* In 1999, [[Partner Communications Company]] joined the cellular communication market in Israel with the brand-name [[Orange Israel]]. Partner was the first company which built network foundations in Israel which worked under [[GSM]] technologies.