The functions of the Ministry
The Ministry of Communications is tasked with managing and setting policy in Israel's communications and postal sector. The Ministry is responsible for planning, developing and regulating the communications infrastructures that foster the use of advanced digital means in employment, education, healthcare, and culture, etc. and that help make Israel a leading country in terms of its high-tech industries. In addition, the Ministry engages in licensing and oversight of owners of communications infrastructures and communications providers, oversight of the Israel Postal Company and the Postal Bank, establishing a control policy and setting tariffs for the various communications services, managing the frequency spectrum, control and oversight of cable-television services, and approving the use of end-user telecommunications devices.
Communications infrastructures: a vital factor in every aspect of the economy and society
The various communications infrastructures serve as a national economy infrastructure linking different core centers of activity in the country and outside it, and sustaining close interaction with all the other sectors of the economy. It is therefore vital that creation of the communications infrastructures be optimally integrated in all the development plans for the economy and environmental construction.
Investments in communications infrastructures draw the periphery closer to the center of the country and contribute to the advancement of the economy as a whole; the country's technological development relies on the existence of highly developed and efficient communications systems.
Ministry policy
Ministry policy in the area of telecommunications and public broadcasting is one of opening up competition, with the good of the citizens the Ministry's top priority. The Ministry takes the view that opening up the field to competition drives growth, increases foreign competition in the country, adds jobs, reduces prices, increases supply, and raises the standard of the services enjoyed by the general public.
About the Ministry
The Ministry of Communications has come a long way in terms of the structural changes it has undergone; from its origins as the Ministry of Postal Services in 1952, when it served as the exclusive provider of communications services, primarily postal and telephone services, and culminating in its transformation into the Ministry of Communications in 1971, as the entity that regulates oversight policy and manages frequency spectrum issues. The Ministry employs a workforce of 160.
Ministry units include the Minister's Office, the Director-General's Office, the Spokesperson's Office, the Economics Administration, the Oversight Administration, the Engineering Administration, the Licensing Branch, the Legal Counsel's Office, the Finance Branch, the Administration and Human Resources Branch, the Policy Planning Branch, the Postal Administration and Postal Bank, the Future Technologies Branch, and the Cable and the Satellite Broadcasting Council.
