Maltacom to announce new call rates

Maltacom customers will soon hear about new call rates, the company's CEO David Kay has told The Sunday Times.

Mr Kay was speaking shortly after the launch of Melita Cable's phone service 'Hello' on Thursday. For Lm2.95 a month, Hello customers get 100 minutes of free talk time and unlimited access to other 'Hello' subscribers.

"Maltacom will be analysing its fixed line rates in view of those launched by the competition, to ensure that the company remains competitive and retains its customers. We welcome competition and over the past months we have been actively preparing ourselves for the entry of new operators," Mr Kay said.

"Our customers can expect changes in our tariffs in the coming days and weeks. Apart from tariff changes, our goal is to ensure we continue developing into a more customer-oriented company, as the competition is also on the level of customer experience we offer."

He said competition on fixed line telephony was no surprise and "we have every intention of remaining the leading telecoms operator on the island with a triple-play offering which includes fixed line, mobile and broadband. The company will soon be in a position to offer quadruple-play offering, with the addition of television in its portfolio. This will translate in a range of value-for-money services for all of Maltacom's customers," he said.

Mr Kay said Maltacom's level of service was "robust, stable, secure and reliable".

This, he said, was the result of its years of experience in running a national network, coupled with the continued investment in state-of-the-art technology.

The company recently announced the completion of a €6.7 million upgrade investment of its switching network while its international bandwidth capacity was trebled.

Industry sources said Melita still had to clarify issues on how its service would be affected in the case of power failures or electricity faults. 'Hello' operates over Melita's Voice Over Broadband cable technology, which necessitates the installation of a modem requiring a power supply. In the case of power failures or power-related faults to the modem, customers would be left without a phone line.

The Malta Communications Authority recently issued a proposed decision which states that all operators are obliged to continue providing uninterrupted access to emergency services, even in case of a power failure.