The Palestinian telephone company, Paltel, is setting up a system designed to bypass the Israeli telephone networks that link the residents of the Palestinian Authority with subscribers abroad.
Israeli telecommunication experts deduce this from the type of equipment that Paltel has ordered from Med Nautilus, the underwater cable company, and from Paltel's requests from Israeli Internet companies to obtain greater bandwidth capacity for data communications.
If this indeed is true, then the Israeli telecommunications networks that link up with abroad will suffer financial losses and Israeli security forces will have difficulty monitoring international communications from the PA. Since the ongoing conflict has caused economic recession in the territories, there does not seem to be another logical explanation for the need for a greater capacity for data communications; it is believed it would be used to camouflage vocal communications. It will also make it possible for the Palestinians to make telephone calls via the Internet.
The PA does not have an independent international calling system and calls from abroad reach Paltel through one of the three Israeli franchisees for international telecommunications - Bezeq, Barak or Golden Lines. Until now, this has made it possible to monitor international calls to and from the Palestinians.
In addition, Paltel has decided to raise the price it charges for transfering international calls, by 500 percent. This has led to the cancellation of many contracts from abroad. An independent system would make it possible for Paltel to lower the costs.
Paltel officials refused to comment yesterday on the reports. Telecommunications Ministry officials in Israel said they were aware of the moves but also would not comment officially.
