IBA offers English, Arabic news for cellphone users

Complete VOD service enables users to decide what news items to watch, flip backward and forward, and replay.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
cell phone 88 (photo credit: )
cell phone 88
(photo credit: )
For years, English and Arabic speakers have been complaining that the Israel Broadcasting Authority is giving them short shrift. Broadcasts in these two languages, they say, are neither long enough nor frequent enough. Now, the IBA has responded to the complaints and is providing a new service for English and Arabic speakers - via their cellphones. Anyone whose cellphone menu includes a video option can call up the news any time of the day or night, without having to access the Internet The complete VOD service enables users to decide what news items they want to watch, flip backward and forward, and replay. In addition to the full news service, users can also catch up on weather forecasts and news updates. The news can be accessed by pressing *11. For those who don't have video service on their cellphone menus, but whose Hebrew is sufficiently fluent for them to be able to follow the Channel 2 newscasts, audio highlights of these broadcasts are available by pressing *22. Watching the news on a cellphone may also relieve some of the noise pollution on public transport. With cellphone users opting to watch broadcasts instead of conducting conversations throughout their journeys on buses, trains or taxis.