Chalk up another successful export industry Israel is a player in: Satellites. Earlier this year, Israel’s first communication satellite, Amos-1, was sold to Intelsat, one of the largest operators of communication satellites in the world. Amos 1 will now be known as Intelsat 24, and will be used for communications in East Asia – meaning that Iranians watching channels like India’s Star TV may be getting their shows from an Israeli-made satellite!

According Amitzur Rosenfeld, director of MicroSat Israel (a joint venture between IAI and Rafael to build micro-satellites), Intelsat is directing eastward Amos-1, which is still in orbit. Speaking recently at a scientific conference in Tel Aviv, Rosenfeld said the original plan had been to use whatever fuel was left on the old Amos-1 (launched in 1996) and fire it out of the earth’s orbit, to make room for new satellites. By doing so, Israel was being a good world citizen; according to NASA, there are over 9,000 (!) satellites and/or other “artificial objects” orbiting the earth, so things can get crowded up there!

Israel was to decommission the Amos-1, since by last year, all of the country’s communications (TV, radio, phone, etc.) that Amos-1 had been used for were transferred to the more advanced Amoses 2 and 3 (the even more advanced Amos-4 is scheduled for launch next year, and Amos-5 the year after).

Israel, it turns out, is one of the most advanced countries in satellite technology anywhere, because of the launching technology it has developed, along with breakthroughs in imaging. Most of the country’s communication satellites (like the Amoses) have been launched from outside the country (France, India, Russia, etc.), because of the need to fire satellites in an eastward direction, the direction of the earth’s rotation. That works fine in Florida or Texas, but in this part of the world, an eastbound launch might be construed as an attack by Jordan or further neighbors.

So, space-bound vehicles launched from Israel must be launched westward, over the Mediterranean. Satellites launched in this direction must have much lighter payloads, in order to successfully escape the earth’s gravity. As a result, Israel developed advanced mini- and micro-satellites, with smaller components that allow satellites to fulfill all the required functions, but at a smaller payload – enabling launch from any direction, or even from the sky.

And, in addition, Israel’s new TecSAR satellite provides superior imaging capabilities, enabling sensors to pick up what is going on down below even during cloudy weather. Israel and France are developing a satellite that will enable farmers, fishermen and governments to better keep track of the land and sea environment, and according to “informed sources,” NASA is set to build a satellite in Israel using TecSAR technology to be used to map the usually very cloudy planet Venus. Nowadays, here in Israel, “space cadet” is a compliment, not an insult!

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Tags: Communications satellite, India, Intelsat, israel, Mediterranean Sea, Middle East, NASA, Tel Aviv

As an almost certified paranoiac, I haven’t been posting for that last three and a half weeks – the exact amount of time I was away with the family in the U.S. I didn’t want to write anything that would give away the fact that I was out of town (and that the house was for the most part empty) like this guy did, giving crooks a green light for their home invasion. You could probably find out my address, if you googled hard enough! Note to all potential thieves: We’re home now, so don’t bother coming around!

What did I bring back from the States, you ask? Plenty: Lots of “stuff,” but even more stories, not all of them happy. Most people who live in Israel and go to the U.S. buy stuff, because it’s often cheaper there, and they have more of a variety. For example: I picked up a nice flat screen TV for the bedroom, only $285 at Wal-mart (which I should have returned, because I saw it a week later at Costco for $225!). We got a bunch of other stuff too, lots of it from the Dollar Store (and Kohl’s, which had some great sales!)

But the stories – those weren’t as much fun as the shopping. Many of the stories had to do with trying to get some help with products and services, and getting pushed around by phone correspondents who were clearly from someplace outside the U.S., who could do nothing more than read a script (usually in very poorly accented English, I might add). I alluded to one of these situations in a JPost article; I was trying to get Verizon, the service provider for my parents’ DSL internet connection, to fix a connection issue.

For a week I was bounced around the world, speaking to phone attendants in India and Mexico, for the most part, who had no answers for me, and no interest in getting my problem solved. As I wrote, these people, from a third world background, have more serious survival issues to deal with than fixing my connection in time to allow me to attend my videoconferencing meetings. And of course, with each subsequent phone call, my tone got louder and louder. You could just picture the phone attendant pulling out her “angry customer script,” reading back the responses she was supposed to give when the customer starts yelling (I bet that script gets a lot of use!). Finally, I managed to get through to someone in the American call center, and the problem was resolved a day and a half later.

Verizon was far from the only runaround I was subjected to – I had “incidents” with several cell phone service providers, and even the customer service in some stores wasn’t up to par. I could even swear that 7-11 was using an inferior grade of coffee – it just wasn’t that good! Not to mention the much higher prices everywhere. Eleven bucks to cross a stupid bridge (the Verrazano)? Fuhgeddaboutit!

As I wrote in the Post, Hebrew has apparently saved Israel from the scourge of outsourcing. It’s unlikely that workers in India or other outsourcing centers are going to bother to learn Hebrew in order to serve the local market, so we’re unlikely to be subjected to the scourges resulting from dealing with uncaring foreigners half a world away. Instead, we’re subjected to the scourges of dealing with uncaring Israelis a half kilometer away! But it’s not the same; you have a common cultural basis which you can pull out of your pocket when you deal with a local person (we’ve all had some experience in this, like the secretary who takes pity on you because she knows you’re getting the kids ready for Shabbat).

Ironically, as a reader reminded me, Israel has a significant outsourcing operation as well; although much less active here now, New Jersey-based IDT runs dozens of call centers here in Israel. But the Israeli call centers are far different than the Indian ones, because here the centers recruit from among American immigrants – so when a caller reaches an Israeli center, they really are talking to someone with whom they can identify, and who can identify with them. Based on my frustrating experiences with call center people over the past few weeks, that identification apparently counts for a lot more than we realize.

Tags: Costco, Hebrew language, India, israel, Jerusalem Post, United States, US, Wal-Mart

After many months, the Modu phones finally go on sale in Israel this week. The Modu, for those not familiar with it (informative article about it right here) is the modular phone that changes its functions, depending on the “sleeve” you put it in. They have, for example, a sports module, which lets the phone record steps, running speed, distance, etc. Another module turns the phone into a mini-boombox, which plays great stereo music. Yet another module turns the device into a full screen video system, letting you watch movies anytime, anywhere.

At 43 grams, the Modu is the lightest cellphone in the world, all by itself (you don’t need a sleeve for the basic phone functions). At NIS 500 (about $130), the Modu is a bargain, considering the usual cost of phones here. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Cellcom customers right now. It is also to go on sale soon in the Philippines, Central and South America, India.

The Modu was supposed to have been released months ago, but according to Modu CEO Dov Moran,  the project suffered unforeseen delays, with investors getting cold feet and supply issues (Texas Instruments, which Modu relied on for the phone’s chips, announced it was getting out of the cellphone business, and the Chinese company that manufactured the unit and the sleeves shut down). All’s well that ends well, though, and Moran finally has fulfilled the Modu dream of developing a phone with advanced functions that won’t strain users’ budgets.

Tags: Cellcom, DovMoran, India, israel, Mobile phone, Modu, South America, Texas Instruments