Route 443, a major traffic artery with problematic reception points/Reuven Castro
For about a year now, we have accompanied Vala in the treatment of the absorption issue on the Judea, Samaria and Bekaa roads.
The combination of relatively isolated roads, with sparse and mixed traffic of Israeli and Palestinian vehicles, which are prone to disasters both in terms of safety and security, make them the ones that must receive precedence and priority also and especially in the aspect of cellular reception.
Reminder: as part of the license granted by the Ministry of Communications to the cellular companies, the companies are obligated to cover at least 95% of fourth generation services.
In practice, in the territories of Judea and Samaria and the Bekaa, there is a critical coverage problem which, as mentioned, is not a question of reception in Wise or Spotify, but concerns the issues of drivers' security and the ability to call for help in the event of an accident or attack.
Cellular masts, in Judea and Samaria it is not quality of life, but life itself / Reuven Castro
As part of the Ministry of Communications' handling of the issue, the Ministry began imposing fines against cellular companies that do not provide the appropriate coverage.
A warning of such financial sanctions worth NIS 9 million was already announced last week for a number of activities that did not meet the license conditions in the Negev, the Arabah and the Golan Heights, but without reference to Judea and Samaria roads.
Now the ministry is also starting tests of reception coverage on these roads, and the first of them is road 443, which serves as a central entrance to Jerusalem, and a busy route to Samaria and the Dead Sea and the Valley.
The sampled section was from the Ofer camp to the Maccabim crossing in both directions.
Despite the relatively short section of the road, 18.1 km long, out of the three cellular operators tested, Pelephone, Cellcom and Partner, only one of them provided 4G service throughout the entire journey, but it also had low reception strength in three sections. The other two companies' reception decreased Level 3 several times throughout the trip, in all of them there was one extremely problematic area (which will not be identified here in order not to reveal a vulnerability). The communications office refused to specify which company was the one with the best coverage among the three.
Wala Car learned that at the conclusion of the inspection it was decided that the office would assist in erecting a mast Reception at the problematic point in order to improve cellular coverage. Will present the results of the tests to the companies and they will be required to provide an appropriate response to the reception problems as they came up in the test.
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