Until this week, cellular phone service providers have been charging hundreds of shekels for plans. People have been paying hundreds or thousands of shekels for their cell service phone bills, as they had expensive plans and it was expensive to use minutes beyond the package deal.
Suddenly, there are packages out there, with the new companies, for unlimited talking at less than 100 NIS per month - including surfing the Internet. And the big, older companies are following suit and have announced they will be cutting rates in the coming days to similar levels.
When you think about it, what changed between 2 weeks ago and today? Between 1 year ago and today? The only thing that changed is that there is more competition fighting for the same business. So, Pelephone, Orange/Partner and Cellcom are suddenly turning around and saying yes, we have been ripping you off for the past 12 years charging you ridiculously high prices with no justification other than that you did not have an alternative option..
If you are worried about customer loyalty and are hesitant to switch, just think about the loyalty they have displayed in offering you the best service at the best prices for the past 12 years....
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Imagine if the government opened competition in the energy market
ReplyDeleteWhich brings up the question, who will have the cheapest price on an iPad 3? (I really rather need one for work)
ReplyDeleteHow does it work when the large companies drop their prices? Are these new pricing plans applied to existing customers, or do we have to cancel and start a new deal? I only made aliya two months ago and signed with Orange/Partner. My assumption is they'll do their best to continue squeezing existing customers who are none the wiser, and will only offer cheaper plans to new customers.
ReplyDeleteyou should definitely call Orange in a couple of days and renegotiate. Another law recently passed by Moshe Kachlon was to abolish cell plan cancellation fees - there is no longer any penalty to cancelling a plan. You can renegotiate your rates at any time, or switch cellphone companies, with no penalty(of course breaking a plan might cause you to pay in full for a cellphone you might have bought at better rates as part of a plan, but there is no penalty for the plan itself).
ReplyDeleteAll the cellphone companies have announced that they will be announcing new plans in the coming days. You should definitely take advantage of that. but yes, someone who does not will continue paying the higher prices of the old plan. Plans do not change automatically.
Which are the new cell phone companies and what are their websites?
ReplyDeleteGolan Telecom can be found at http://www.golantelecom.co.il/web/ (you can switch there to the english site)
ReplyDeleteHOT Mobile can be found at http://www.hotmobile.co.il/Pages/default.aspx?gclid=CLK3-taVhbACFcRF3wodXFAwmw
Rami levi opened a while back and can be found at http://www.rami-levy.co.il/default.asp?catid=%7B8C4B6B80-75E4-42CE-B72A-E230CFFA3EA1%7D