Bezeq (Hebrew: בזק) is a telecommunications provier in Israel. Until the mid-2000s when it was owned by the Israeli government, Bezeq had a monopoly on wireline telephony. Though still the most dominant provider of telephone services, it has competition with the sole cable provider in the country (since September 2006),HOT, which offers a cables based telephone service as of 2005 and with Kavei Zahav - 012, which is an Israeli Internet service provider.