The Ministry of Communications intends to allow the Israel Postal Company to provide e-mail services

The ministry will allow the Postal Company to be engaged in electronic mail message transmission, and will allow the delivery of "hybrid" mail combining electronic and physical messages. This step is part of the ministry's policy to financially strengthen the Postal Company through widening the services it offers.

In broadening the range of its services from traditional mail to inclusion of electronic mail, the Postal Company will become part of the worldwide trend of postal companies entering that field.

The approval will include, among other things, the ability to assign email accounts to customers and to deliver them secure email messages.

Another advanced service that the ministry plans to approve, is "hybrid" mail service, which includes transmission of email messages by the customer to the postal company, printing them there, and transmitting them as physical letters to the addressees.

At this stage, the ministry intends to limit the quantity of items allowed to be included in one delivery and to dedicate the "hybrid" service to private customers and small businesses; this is in order to prevent the entry of the Postal Company to the area of postal item production, which might impair the newly started competition in the postal market.

Minister of Communications Ariel Attias: "While we are opening the postal market to competition, the ministry is also taking steps to increase the Postal Company's revenue base by approving the company's entry to new fields of activity, such as electronic services, and making the company’s services compatible with present-day developments in the field of posts".

These days, the Ministry of Communications is completing the process of examining the service portfolios submitted by the Postal Company, with the intention to integrate them in the license that will be granted to the company.

Dr. Yechiel Shabi