Telecommunications in Israel are the most developed in the Middle East. Israel's system consists of coaxial cables, optical fibers, and microwave radio relay. Prior to the 1990s, Israel's telecommunication market was dominated by Bezeq, a government-owned corporation. During the 1990s, the Israeli telecommunication industry transitioned from government owned monopolies to diversified private competition by a range of new companies. As of 2014, the telecommunications sector in Israel had revenues over ₪15 billion, representing about 2% of the GDP. Technology and industry-wise, the Israeli telecom industry has been among global leaders in technology development pioneering developments of protocols such as WiMAX, VoIP and TDMoIP. During the 2000s Israel emerged as a leading supplier for the global telecommunications industry, and a global leader in technological research.
1940s–1960s
1939 – Yedioth Ahronoth is founded – the national newspaper of Israel. 1948 – The Israeli Postal Service (Ministry of Transport, Postal, Telegraph and Radio) replaced the mail service system provided during the British Mandate of Palestine. 1948 – Maariv is founded – Daily newspaper 1966 – The Israeli Educational Television began broadcasting on 24 March. 1968 – The public broadcasting channel Channel 1 (then called "The Israeli Television") started broadcasting with a live broadcast of an army parade on the Israeli Independence Day in Jerusalem.
1970s–1980s
The Voice of Peace (קול השלום – Kol Hashalom) was a radio station that served Israel and the Middle East for 20 years. The station first went on the air in May 1973 from the ship MV Peace (formerly the Dutch cargo vessel MV Cito). The 1980s brought a revolution to the communication market in Israel:
In 1984, Bezeq was established to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency, significantly reducing the waiting period for the installation of new telephone lines. In 1986, the Israel Postal Authority was founded. In 1986, Pelephone (the first cellular company in Israel) was established by Motorola and Tadiran. In October 1986, the Israeli Channel 2 started experimental broadcasts which continued for a period of seven years. Arutz Sheva ( ערוץ 7 – Channel 7) was a radio station that served Israel for 15 years. The station first went on the air on 21 October 1988 from the ship MV Eretz HaTzvi (formerly the Maltese cargo vessel MV Mount Parnis). Pirate cable TV arrived towards the end of the eighties.
1990s
The 1990s was a decade of marked change in the Israeli telecommunications industry, and massive developments in 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 – began to broadcast on 4 November 1993, which began the era of 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. 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). 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 Jordanian and Lebanese channels which were the only foreign channels received in Israel until then), and to new local channels on the cables: The children channel, the sports channel, 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 radios 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 NetVision and Internet Gold. In 1994, 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. In 1998, Bezeq's monopoly on international calling services was ended with the addition of two other companies, Golden Lines, and 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.
2000s In the first decade of the 21st century there was a major emphasis on digitization and a shift to mobile technologies, following similar trends in Europe and North America.
Television
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