Nostalgia Sunday – Arrivederci Analog

February 27, 2011 - 10:03 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business, Entertainment, Environment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Movies, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture, Technology, tv 

Israel is on the brink of revolution and doesn’t even know it. No, not that kind. On March 30, 2011, analog television broadcasting will cease to be and henceforth, we will be a purely digital nation. As with Morse Code, HAM radio, fax and other tried and true technologies, analog is being put out to pasture.

The Ministry of Communications has produced a series of friendly ads featuring a 70s-style dude in black and white, who lets you know in no uncertain terms that, “The old method of broadcasting via rooftop antennae is passing from this world. It’s over. The end.”

Which makes it a perfect time to wax nostalgic for the old aluminum rooftop antenna. After television broadcasting commenced in Israel in 1968, these sprouted up like so many spindly saplings in a JNF forest, covering every city and town throughout the land.

In addition to creating urban blight, the rooftop antenna — aided by its housebound cousin, the rabbit ears antenna on the set-top — was also the source of many an amusing moment. I distinctly remember, days before the first Gulf War, standing on my friend’s roof, metal mop handle in one hand, antenna in the other, furiously tying one to the other and then both to a old chair, in hopes of improving the TV reception. (PS: It worked). And of course, one could spend hours making shapes out of a piece of tin foil in hopes of accessing Jordan TV in English.

Of course, if you really wanted good reception — and you had the means — you could just invest in a bigger antenna. These got so big and so ugly that eventually a new style was born to suit the nouveau riche: the TV antenna in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. Ooh la la!

Then, in the early 90s, cable TV came and changed everything. A decade later, satellite TV was launched. Aside from bringing Israel into the international brotherhood of couch potatoes (to be discussed in depth on another occasion), these platforms also changed our landscape; the rooftop antennas began falling into disuse and then literally fell to pieces. These the neighbors would sweep up. Sometimes.

And now, we are set to follow the worldwide trend towards Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) where, as explained by the 21st century dude in the ads (he’s the one in color), we’ll be able to receive programming via a reception kit comprising a tuner and antenna.

Wait. Did he just say antenna? Yes, but only a very small one. And it can’t do nuthin’ without the decoder.

DTT’s many advantages — better reception, environmental friendliness — are explained in a series of commercials from IDAN+, a joint venture of the Second Television Broadcasting Authority (which is in charge of aggregation and distribution) and Bezeq, our semi-privatized national telecommunications company (charged with technical responsibility of the network). Another advantage: after the initial small outlay for the kit, no more paying an average of NIS 2,400 annually to HOT cable or YES satellite television for free-to-air channels.

Plus, you have no choice. The era of accessing the airwaves freely is over and the long arm of the government is ever more easily able to stretch out and turn off the information tap, should it choose. Our saving grace, here in Israel, is that the government’s arm is very often busy scratching its nether parts and if a tap needs to be repaired, you could wait forever for a plumber.

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Nostalgia Sunday – The day Cellcom launched

December 13, 2009 - 10:04 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Technology 

Cellcom_Jpost_Dec_28_1994We stayed up till past midnight last week to witness the first launching of iPhone in Israel . And, like the proverbial lead balloon that was Y2K, we waited… and waited… and nothing happened.

Apple importer iDigital put a good amount of effort into creating a special website with a slick-looking countdown clock and promises of streaming video broadcasts live from their store in the Dizengoff Center. But the Twitter feeds from those standing on line should have tipped us off. “There’s more photographers here than customers,” one person Tweeted. “There’s only about 40-50 people standing in line,” posted another. The online video only confirmed their reports: an airy atmosphere with plenty of room to move around. No pushing. No shoving. No thundering hordes.

Let me just state for the record (although everyone knows) that the main reason why the iPhone launch failed to generate any excitement was that anyone in this country who wants an iPhone already has one. This is a country of gear-heads and gadget freaks. Little obstacles like local cellular companies not providing service or support did not stop anyone over the past two years from buying the coveted device abroad and having it hacked, cracked and operational within hours of landing at Ben Gurion Airport.

How things have changed from the days when it took years of being on a waiting list before being assigned a landline by the state-run Israel Telephone Company! The days when you had to rely on being in your neighbors’ good graces if you wanted to make or receive a phone call. The days when, if you were lucky enough to inherit a line, you had to bring the phone company your grandmother’s death certificate and pay hundreds of lira in installation fees just to keep an already-installed line.

The creation of semi-privatized phone company Bezeq in 1985 did little to change the situation, except that phone company clerks were now free to tell any customer complaining about their inefficiency, “We are Bezeq. We are efficient now.”

Phew! That little trip down memory lane just raised my blood pressure a good 10 points. And not just mine but the rest of the population who, enterprising as always, figured out a way to bypass the phone company by leapfrogging technology. Already comfortable with walkie-talkies from their army service, by the mid-1980s, Israelis executives were happy to pay exorbitant sums to Pele-phone for the use of heavy-as-a-brick Motorola cell phones. More accurately put, they were happy to have their employers pay.

And then, in 1994, the Ministry of Communications announced it would license a second cellular phone company, thus introducing competition into the field and hopefully lowering prices. On December 28, 1994, the day that Cellcom opened its store in the Dizengoff Center – yes, the very same – I was sent, as a junior business reporter for the Jerusalem Post, to cover the event.

At 9:00am, people were already crowding the entrance. Cellcom had assigned a bevy of pretty girls to hand out red roses to the crowd. Had they done any realistic market research, they would have assigned a battery of security guards armed with clubs and mace. Because every small businessman, man-with-a-van, man-with-a-plan — not to mention pimp, drug dealer and any other person in need of a phone device you can use while running – showed up. And they were not in the mood for flowers. Thinking that I was handing out numbers to stand in line, a few gentlemen pushed me into a corner and tore my notebook out of my hands, then threw it back in disgust when they realized I wasn’t. Although service at that point was limited only to Tel Aviv, Cellcom sold out every device in a matter of hours.

Now that was a launch. The air was electric because it was a true revolution in communications in a budding free market economy, plus you might have gotten knifed if you weren’t careful. It was great. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

With the advent of relatively cheap cell phone service, the public even forgave Cellcom a few weeks later when there was a product recall and thousands of devices had to have a chip replaced. Cellcom’s very savvy PR man Nissan Balaban advised the company not to cover-up the problem but to face it head on. This time they got their demographic right: a massive repair event was held at the Ramat Gan soccer stadium, there was food and drink, everyone’s phone was fixed and no one got hurt.

Today there are two cell phones for every one Israeli, three and a half cellular phone service providers, and no one ever need knock on the neighbors’ door to make a phone call. Public phones are almost non-existent. So pity not the poor iPhone importer – eventually they’ll lower their (over)price to a competitive one and we’ll have three cell phone devices for everyone.

For more information, there is a nice article in Wikipedia about the history of Communications in Israel.

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Refugee photography

January 29, 2009 - 2:18 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, Immigrant Moments 

Active VisionSince late 2006, an estimated 10,000 African refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in Israel, crossing the border with Egypt on foot. After a long period of not knowing what to do with these people, several governmental bodies have since begun assisting them via a variety of humanitarian projects.

NGOs have been paying attention as well, with initiatives like Fugee Fridays organizing grassroots efforts to bring food from the Carmel Market to hungry refugees. A related organization, called ActiveVision, offering activities and workshops for refugees in the digital visual media arts. Since the late summer, one workshop project called “Asylum City” has taught a group of pupils how to operate still and video cameras as tools for conveying a message. Assignments mostly focused on documenting the community of asylum seeking families living in Tel Aviv, with the results yielding a print publication and a photo exhibition.

As Fugee Fridays co-founder Daniel Cherrin puts it in a recent piece for Haaretz,

The [Asylum City] course was extremely successful and instructors were able to teach the importance of filmmaking and storytelling both in theory and in practice. As a result, some very interesting and important films were produced. The group thus also actively takes part in spreading the awareness of their own situation.

Many of the older images from Asylum City can be seen here, while the latest batch, including profiles of some of the photographers, can be seen here. A slideshow of images from the workshops themselves can be seen here. Last week, a photo exhibition opened at the Shapira Quarter home of Y Circus.

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