Sim cards for Israel
 

I have a friend that is planning on spending 10 days in Israel and I was wondering what the forum recommends she should get. she has an unlocked quadband phone so that part is fine. So what do you recommend and what will she pay for the sim card?

Sim Cards Not cars LOL

I think you'd be better off posting this in "Asia and Middle East".

Get either an Orange or Cellcom card. Orange is 900 and 1800 Mhz network and Celcom is 1800 only.

Orange is the original GSM network in Israel and Cellcom is a converted TDMA network. They both have good coverage with some few places where Orange works better. I'm not sure about Cellcom, but with Orange you get NIS 50 credit just for activating the account. Not sure where you'll find them, but any big electronics store should have at least Cellcom or Orange starter kits available. Validity on accounts last for 365 days before the account is deactivated.

I've got an Orange and Cellcom card, both work fine in my older Samsung quad band dumb phone and new Samsung Vibrant (US TMob. version).

they both claim 3G, but I wasn't successful getting them activated for data - it's not automatic. The street shops (small general stores) that sell them and do top-ups have no idea, and I couldn't navigate the webpages to register, mostly Hebrew and Russian.

You also have to get them activated separately to roam internationally, if you want to register some activity and avoid the risk of de-activation after a year.

According to Wikipedia they run GSM at 1800 MHz, but they also have deployed a 3G (UMTS) network at 850 and 2100 MHz.

All GSM operators offer good national coverage. In the periphery Orange and Cellcom have only 2G coverage.
To clarify the frequency band issue:
Orange IL operates GSM 900 and 3G 2100 with very limited GSM 1800 and 3G 900.
Cellcom IL Uses GSM 1800 and 3G 2100 bands.
Pelephone IL is 3G only with the unusual combination of the 850 and 2100 bands, which means that using a handset with only one of the bands may cause a somewhat patchy coverage, especially in the less populated regions of the country.
Data use should not be a problem, no activation is needed. However access point (APN) data should be entered into the handset. Orange offers special data topups - 5GB for NIS 99 or 20 GB for NIS 149, both valid for 30 days.

Last time I was in Israel (a long time ago) many folks carried several cell phones because it was so expensive to call from one network to another. Your choice may be dictated by who you are calling or being called by.

That has to be a very long time ago, when interconnect rates were very high. Nowadays the inteconnect rate is NIS 0.08/min and usually included in the per minute price. Still, many people carry more than one phone - for work and for private use.

What are the prepaid rates for voice, SMS, and data for each of the carriers?

I tried to look it up, but it was in Hebrew and google translate is not working for some reason.