Source URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=avi5.z0IFYpY&refer=technology

Bezeq to Offer `Clean' Phone Line for Ultra-Orthodox Homes

By Gwen Ackerman

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Bezeq Ltd., Israel's biggest telecommunications company, will begin offering a ``clean'' phone line for ultra-Orthodox Jewish homes that will block calls deemed inappropriate by a team of rabbis.

Subscribers to the service will be blocked from calling a list of numbers deemed ``profane'' by the rabbis, Tel Aviv-based Bezeq said today in an e-mailed statement. Phone-sex services would be one example, it said.

``This kosher phone line is the flagship product of a series that Bezeq offers to the very religious community,'' Bezeq Chief Executive Officer Avi Gabay said in the statement.

Bezeq is fighting to retain residential customers as competition grows in the local market and chief rival Hot-Cable Systems Media Ltd. lures away subscribers.

Flexible mobile-phone services offered by Cellcom Ltd. and Partner Communications Co. are also cutting into Bezeq's revenue, which may fall further now that a number portability law has gone into effect, allowing subscribers to take their phone numbers with them when they change operators.

The new ``clean'' line service will be offered at no extra charge for at least two months, and following that will cost no more than a ``few shekels a month,'' said Bezeq spokesman Guy Hadas.

Bezeq provides phone service to two million Israeli homes, of which 210,000 are ultra-Orthodox, it said. The company expects tens of thousands of homes to sign up for the new service in the next few months, it said.

Bezeq rose 2.9 percent to 6.8 shekels today in Tel Aviv trading. The shares have risen 15 percent in the last year, valuing the company at 17.7 billion shekels ($4.95 billion).