Israeli Ministry of Communications Proposes Stricter Cellular Coverage and Call Quality Standards on Roads
The Israeli Ministry of Communications has introduced updated coverage and service quality obligations aimed at improving cellular network availability and performance, particularly along roads and railway lines. The ministry published the proposed regulations on Wednesday and invited feedback from cellular providers and the public. The ministry emphasized that cellular networks are essential infrastructure and that the frequencies allocated to them are a valuable public resource. Given technological advances and the transition to 4G and 5G networks, the ministry seeks to update decade-old license requirements to better reflect current user experience and coverage needs.
A key proposed change targets continuous cellular coverage on intercity roads and railway routes. Instead of measuring average coverage over an entire road length, the ministry proposes assessing coverage in continuous 20-kilometer segments. Within each segment, areas without coverage must not exceed 200 meters cumulatively. For local roads, the maximum allowed continuous coverage gap is 500 meters. This change will also impact cellular reception along Israel Railways’ main lines, which largely run adjacent to these roads.
The ministry also plans to remove the indoor coverage obligation due to regulatory challenges in enforcing signal penetration inside buildings. Instead, it proposes stricter outdoor signal thresholds to account for indoor signal degradation. Additionally, the ministry recommends tightening the maximum allowed rate of blocked or dropped calls to 1% per hour, down from the current 2%.
These measures are part of a broader ministry initiative to significantly enhance Israel’s cellular infrastructure quality. Complementary steps include removing barriers to antenna installation, facilitating public property access for sites, reallocating additional frequencies for cellular use, expanding field enforcement through drive tests, promoting indoor coverage solutions, and launching a transparency system to publicly display real coverage maps.
