Pre Paid SIM Card Israel


by John Dulaney - Date: 2006-12-20 - Word Count: 2423 Share This!

The modern state of Israel came up as the as the national homeland for the Zionist community in the year 1948. Jews had been on the look out to return to their favourite and historical homeland since the Babylonian captivity after 597 BC. The Jewish-Roman wars and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 BC only added fuel to the fire. Gradually, this started emerging as the holy land for the Jews. The general decline in the status of Jews throughout the European continent and their consequential expulsion from many countries spurred Jews immigration to the new land during the period 13th to 19th centuries.

By the mid 19th Century, Israel had become a part of the Ottoman Empire populated with Muslim and Christian Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Druze, Bedouins and other minorities. But by 1890s the Jews became an absolute majority. Some major agricultural communities like the Mikveh Israel, Alliance Israelite Universelle, Petah Tikva, and Rishon LeZion were formed during 1870-90. However the decision to establish a home for Jewish people in Eretz-Israel was first proclaimed by the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

Landmarks in the history of Israel were the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and assignment by the League of Nations in favour of UK after the First World War, the Palestine Mandate. Immigration continued and number of Jews in Palestine multiplied. Following the World War II, when the British announced their intention to withdraw from the British mandate of Palestine, the United Nations General Assembly proposed and implemented the partition of Palestine state into an Arab State and a Jewish State. While Jews accepted the partition, the Arabs rejected it. In consequence to that,, in 1948, under David Ben Gurion, Jews started their war of Independence with the declaration of the State of Israel. The war was between Arab states on one side and Israel on the other. The tiny state vanquished all and occupied most part of Palestine and finally the peace treaty resulted in 50% increase in Israeli territory.

Political conflict between Israel and Arab countries led to the first Suez War in 1956. The combined forces of the United Kingdom, France, and Israel were winners, but they had to withdraw in face of pressure from the United States. Subsequent wars took place in 1967 when once again Israel came out to be the winner. After the 1973 war the position of Israel was further consolidated though the Arabs retaliated with an oil embargo on all countries having relationship with Israel.

On the economic front, the years 1948-65 were the formative years for the new nation. A major problem was appropriately accommodating the 685,000 immigrants. Despite the constraints Israel managed to have a growth rate in average GNP by 11% and per capita GNP by 6% per annum. Real per capita national income grew @ 20% per annum during 1969-72 and @ 5% during 1973-80. It ranged from 9.7% to 10.2% during 1980-2005.

Geographically, Israel is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan towards its east, and Egypt on the south-west. The coastline of Israel stretches along the Mediterranean seas in the west and Gulf of Eilat also known as the Gulf of Aquaba in the south. Later they annexed the Golan Heights. Today it has an area of about 14,000 square miles as against the original 12,900 in 1967. The area under its control is 17,400 square miles. The climate varies from cold and snowy in Golan Heights to typical Mediterranean in the coastal areas.

The population of Israel as on September 2006 was 7.1 million. Among them 2.6 millions are employed. The monthly wage per employee was approximates 1749 US Dollars. The Private consumption expenditure per capita was around 1839 US Dollars. The percentage of unemployed persons was 8.7%. The population comprises of 76% Jews, 19.7% Arabs and 4.3% others. Israel has a plethora of tourist attractions including the holy places for Zionists and Christians, while it has a number of attractive sea beaches and mountain tracking spots for normal tourists.

There are excellent art museums in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Herzliya. Israel Museum in Jerusalem houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are also three artist colonies in Safed, Jaffa, and Ein Hod. The two official languages spoken in Israel are Hebrew and Arabic. However other minority languages include Russian, Ladino, Polish, Italian, German, Persian, Yiddish, French, Romanian, Dutch, and Amharic. Newspapers in all languages are available too. In terms of ranking in school life expectancy, Israel now ranks at the 22nd place among 111 nations. Seven out of the top ten universities in Middle East are in Israel. Hebrew University of Jerusalem is among the top 200 universities in the World. The three-tier education system is that of primary (1-6), secondary (7-9), and higher education (10-12).

Games and sports form an important part of Israeli culture. Football and Basketball happens to be the two most popular games of sports in Israel. Two other games namely, handball and athletics are gaining popularity. Other games are hockey, rugby, athletics, and chess. Israel till date has won six Olympic gold medals.

Israeli literature is mostly written in Hebrew and every year thousands of new books are published. Israeli music is a combination of east and west. Diaspora, Hassidic songs, hip hop and heavy metal are all part of its musical scene. Popular music styles include pop, rock, heavy metal, hiphops and rap, trance, oriental and ethnic music of different types. Israel has won the Eurovision Song contest three times. Israel is also known for its famous classical orchestra. In Israel, there are 76% of Israelis are Jews by religion following Judaism, 19.7% are Arabs that include Muslims, Christians, and Druze, and 4.3% are others. Amongst these 12% of the Israelis are ultra orthodox religions, while 9% are religious, 35% are traditionalists and 43% are secular, with 53% believing in God.

Mobile telephony has become a part of every one's life these days. Where-ever we go we have our cell phone with us. When you visit Israel you would be taking your cell phone with you. You have been on such visits in your past, even during the time when mobile telephony was not there. How did you communicate on phone at that time?

You had used the telephone in your hotel room to be in touch with your associates and your friends, abroad and locally and also with your family back home. You had no other option, but to use the telephone in your hotel room. The bill that you paid for your calls was exorbitant and way out of your budget that you had set for the purpose.

When mobile telephony was commercially made available, you had taken your cell phone on roaming, when you visited abroad. You had paid for your outgoing and incoming calls on higher rates, since you were on roaming. In providing you with the roaming facility, your service provider has entered into a business agreement with the provider of the country that you are visiting. This is a contract which stipulates some financial aspects also. Each time you use your cell phone in the foreign land, you would be utilising the services of an operator in that country, and your service provider would need to pay that provider for those services. Therefore, the calls that you make and receive are charged more than usual when you are roaming with your cell. All these charges reflect in your bill which you receive at the end of the month. Taking your cell phone on roaming is expensive, may be more than your calls from your hotel room.

A pre-paid SIM card for Israel saves you up to 80% of your phone call expenses. You get a local Israeli number and you pay for your calls as the locals do. All your incoming calls are free of charge, no matter where they generate from. You do not pay for roaming and you do not have to enter into any contract what-so-ever. You do not receive any bill at the end of the month. When you buy a pre-paid SIM card for Israel, you get a small talk time credit along with it, so that you can start making and receiving calls. As you go low on your talk time credit, you may replenish it by buying recharge coupons, which are available in practically any shop in the cities of Israel. These vouchers are available in many denominations and you may choose the value of the talk time credit that you would want. Since you pre-pay for your calls, you remain aware of the expenses that you are incurring for the calls that you are making. For more information on pre-paid SIM card for Israel, visit http://www.mindlogic.com/SIM_CTRY_israel_DTL.shtml

A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card is a little smaller than a postage stamp and is the intelligent module in your cell phone, which lets you make and receive calls and provides you with other mobile facilities. It is a printed circuit board, consisting of a microprocessor and memory. The SIM card holds unique information about you and your phone, like, your SIM card number, your subscription information, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) of your mobile phone and other security details. When you switch on your phone, the information is transmitted to the nearest tower in the city that you are in. The network validates the information, completes the security checks and then logs you in. You are now ready to use your pre-paid SIM card for Israel and you can start to make and receive calls. The SIM card also holds your address book, where you store the names and the telephone numbers of the people who you call frequently. It also logs the incoming and outgoing calls and also the ones that you fail to answer. These numbers are logged by the SIM card along with the respective call time and dates.

Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is the first open architecture digital second generation (2G) mobile communication technology, replacing the old first generation (1G) system. It was first developed in Europe and is now used in over 214 countries with 80% subscribers amongst the total mobile users in the world. GSM has four set of frequency bands - 850 MHz, 900 MHz, and 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz - which are distributed to the different regions using GSM technology. Some of these bandwidths are commonly used by some of the GSM regions.

When you visit Israel you would need a GSM handset. If you have a GSM cell phone, it is highly unlikely that it will work in Israel, unless your cell phone complies with multiple GSM bandwidths. Networks in Israel operate on 900MHz and 1800MHz GSM bandwidths, while networks in North America, Canada and a few other countries in the Americas operate on 850MHz and 1900MHz GSM frequency bands. None of these match with the ones used in the United States.

Cell phones are available in multi-frequency bands. The Quad-band is compatible with all the GSM bandwidths and can operate in any part of the world, in countries operating on GSM network. The Tri-band operates on 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz frequency bands and is compatible with most of the GSM regions. The Dual-band responds to two frequency bands - 800MHz and 1900 MHz.

The GSM phone that you are taking along with your pre-paid SIM card for Israel, needs to be SIM unlocked, as otherwise you will not be able to operate your cell phone with the pre-paid SIM card or any other SIM card for that matter. A SIM locked phone is only meant for a particular SIM card and it would work only with that SIM card and none else.

To site an example, suppose you sign a contract with your service provider and that contract has a clause which stipulates that you agree to use the service for a definite period of time, which is usually one year. After you have completed the formalities, you would receive a cell phone, absolutely free of cost to you, and the SIM card. This cell phone is SIM locked. It is done so by the service provider, ensuring that you do not use the phone with any other SIM card till you have completed your contract period. After your contract period is over, your service provider helps you to unlock the cell phone, after which you can use any SIM card of your choice.

Therefore, when you visit Israel, you need to ensure two things. One that you have a compatible GSM phone to operate in the country and, two, that your phone is not SIM locked. If you are a frequent traveller abroad, visiting many countries, you would be better off in buying a cell phone which is bandwidth-wise compatible to the countries that you usually visit. If you do not travel frequently, it is economical for you to rent such a phone. For more information about buying or renting a phone, visit http://www.mindlogic.com/SIM_CTRY_israel_DTL.shtml

A pre-paid SIM card for Israel is not only affordable but a great savings too. With all your outgoing calls being charged at the local rate and with no charges for incoming calls, your savings can go up to 80% of the expenses that you would have incurred otherwise. Further you do not pay any roaming charges. Since you pre-pay for your calls, you can keep a track of the expenditure which helps you to remain within the budget that you have set for the purpose.

Cell phone use overseas. In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You'll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 or the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984.


Related Tags: french, prepaid, rent, sim cards, gsm, international, sim card, cell phone rental, mobal, pre-paid

Cell phone use overseas. In 99% of the world the local cellular service standard is called GSM. We use this in the states as well. When combined with a SIM CARD (which usually goes under the battery of the phone) the phone is able to communicate and the SIM CARD also holds the telephone number and memory for pre-paid credit. Rates can be extremely low using this system. For example in 99% of all SIM CARDS incoming calls are free and calls to the states can cost a trifle. Such as, from the UK to the USA 7 cents/minute, from Israel 22 cents, from Australia 27 cents. Yes, USA Dollar cents! There are today even prepaid service providers in the USA offering rates of 10 cents per minute to call anywhere in the US to any type of phone. No contracts, no credit card checks, no bills. Pre-paid always means no minimums no contracts, no obligations. You only pay for the calls made. You'll need an unlocked GSM tri-band or quadband UNLOCKED phone. You can buy factory unlocked phones and sim cards for more than 170 of the 193 countries on earth from http://www.planetomni.com Tel. # 800-514-2984

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: