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Update 8: International connectivity - MCA to consider better contingency planning

A fault in the Go submarine cable between Malta and Sicily was repaired by 7.15 p.m. today, ending a day of misery for hundreds of internet users who had no link with overseas sites.

"The fault has been repaired," a spokesman for Go told timesofmalta.com.

Meanwhile, the Ministry for IT and communications in a statement expressed its concern over what happened today and said Malta will have four submarine cables linking it to the continent by 2010. There are currently two, the one belonging to Go and another owned by Vodafone.

The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) said that as from tomorrow it will consider ways to improve and speed up contingency plansto avoid a repetition of what hapened today.

The Communications Ministry said the availability of several options for international connectivity had been and continued to be a priority of the government to ensure that any future accidents such as this one would have an ever lesser impact on the Maltese economy and information society.

“In this context, without creating market distortions, we shall work with the telecoms providers to enhance Malta’s highways by aggressively pursuing the expansion of international connectivity on all counts with the aim of improving the resilience of this critical infrastructure."

Quoting the Smart Island Strategy, published last year, the ministry said: “We shall follow an ambitious path to have more connections to mainland Europe (laid via alternative routes to the existing ones), North Africa and potentially to the Middle-East, landing in different locations and connecting to different nodes, hence establishing us as a real regional hub for electronic services.”

It said new fiscal incentives to assist private enterprise in investing in more connectivity had been drawn up and were currently being discussed with the European Commission for clearance.

Furthermore a second submarine cable by Go was expected to become operational by the end of this year, and Melita Cable was also planning another international connection that would meet the target set out in The Smart Island Strategy to have four international connections by 2010 (The other being the Vodafone cable to Sicily).

“This reduces nothing of the cost and inconvenience of the present reduction in connectivity. But the present experience is unfortunately justifying the government’s past and present efforts to facilitate and aid with public funds the avoidance of its repetition in the future,” the ministry said.

The fault developed this morning on land in Sicily because of infrastructural works and Go activated limited backup satellite and microwave links, while apologising for the inconvenience caused.

A spokesman explained that many people had been without overseas internet links because the backup internet service was provided through the microwave link, which was also shared with voice traffic and leased lines.

The Malta Communications Authority in a statement late in the afternoon had said that Go’s satellite and microwave contingency links had coped with international voice traffic that, in situations of emergency such as this, was given priority over other bandwidth requirements.

Following the Authority’s intervention, Go and Vodafone engineers worked together to divert Go’s broadband traffic onto Vodafone’s international cable to alleviate the problem.

Earlier, Vince Farrugia, director-general of the GRTU, said the suspension of internet services had caused widespread "panic stations" among many businesses which depended on the internet.

"The MCA needs to tell us exactly what it has been doing to ensure there is full back-up in such circumstances," he said.

The MCA in a new statement issued as services were being restored, thanked Go for its work to restore service as soon as possible. It also thanked Vodafone for the collaboration shown in working with Go to alleviate the problem, and the Italian regulator AGCOM that was instrumental in expediting matters with Telecom Italia Sparkle.

"MCA will be drawing its own conclusions from this unfortunate incident and will, as of tomorrow, be carrying out a post-mortem with the objective of seeing what needs to be done to improve and speed up contingency plans of all operators offering this international service."

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Comments

Dr.Emma Bezzina,LL.D.,B.A.,Dip.S.Th (on 8/8/08)
@Ray Agius

What do you care what Mr Grech uses his connection for? Maybe he uses it for whacking off to porn, but still do you think you have more right just because you use it for 'business'? How arrogant!
Christopher Grillo (on 7/8/08)
Aaaaaah....sheer bliss! A whole day without receiving pesky emails! At least I could catch up with my backlog of work. I did have Melita service at home...don't they use the same cable too?
Ishmael Portelli (on 7/8/08)
I can’t understand the discrepancy between the statement made by an Onvol Senior, stating that the Go submarine cable between Malta and Sicily did not affect the service provided to their customers, and Onvols customer support team who earlier in the morning confirmed that their broadband is provided by Datastream, and that Datastream were working on migrating all users (including Onvols) to a backup plan. Also backing this up was the automated message being played when one was calling Onvols customer support in the morning, which was confirming that Onvol were experiencing technical difficulties in Internet connectivity and that their Engineers were working on having it repaired asap. Its disappointing when you think you have a “redundancy plan” by paying for two internet connections from separate ISPs, believing they have separate International links, and when one fails you still come to a halt.
K Ellul (on 7/8/08)
"The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) said that as from tomorrow it will consider ways to improve and speed up contingency plans to avoid a repetition of what happened today"

This is the typical Maltese way of going about problems. When are we going to learn and be proactive? This is a serious issue, which the government should have considered ages ago. To attract foreign investment we should have our infrastructure in place and provide a decent service. Instead the people responsible for attracting investment are busy putting up signs and billboards all around Malta!

Will we be compensated for yesterday's outage? Of course not... this is Malta remember.
Joseph Attard (on 7/8/08)
Of course this was not expected in 2008, but lets just take a lesson. The Minister should now taking the circumstances outline publicly when these other referred to submarine cables will be in place, or when the said jobs will start.
We have to remember that many industries depend on these connections in 2008, its as important as water and electricitywhther we like it or not. So let s make sure that MCA doesnt take ages to come up with a plan and Im sure Minister Gatt wont let them sleep on it!.
And please lets make sure that Go or the Maltese Government if need be sues those responsible for this accident and accumulates enough tangible information from parties or companies who lost income due to this inconvenience. They should be compensated ! Let s make sure accountability is everywhere even in such matters.
Joseph Ellis (on 7/8/08)
Frankly, I think much of the criticism levelled at GO and MCA is totally unjustified. We have a top-class competitively priced telecom infrastructure which is going to expand significantly. Accidents do happen as they did and what MCA needs to put in place are contingency plans so that operators can divert their traffic to their competitors' infrastructure in an emergency.
R. Caruana (on 7/8/08)
Well said, Julian Borg. My business too depends a lot on internet, so I use both providers. And the cost is not prohibitive if your bread and butter depends on it.

It was a normal day as far as I was concerned, both e.mails and browsing/uploading/downloading continued uninterrupted.
P Grech (on 7/8/08)
@ G Grech...

It is only in Malta that we are not compensated for a whole day's loss of productivity. It is only in Malta that we basically have a duopoly in Internet, TV and mobile service providers.

At least foreigners are compensated, and at least they can switch ISP's when things go wrong. In Malta, we experience these "technical difficulties" with every ISP around once a month. I know through my own experience.
Stefan Azzopardi (on 7/8/08)
Boring Moaners! Stop with this insulting the country without considering the facts...if you are all this perfect you wouldnt be here wasting your time writing these depressive chats! GET A LIFE!!
laurence schembri (on 7/8/08)
Isn`t fun, at least some of the moaners got off their but and were made to realise that there is life outside internet.
Antonio Persiano - Senior Operations Engineer - London UK (on 6/8/08)
It's unfortunate what happened today in Malta, this definitely had negative effect on a lot of business in Malta and those looking to invest in the island of Malta. This is probably a lack of design in connectivity to various POP's instead of terminating in 1 POP. My concern is why do Telecom Italia terminate both GO circuits to 1 POP? This should be questioned by GO, and a serious re design of connecting the country to the world should be wisely thought of...
To have complete resilient one has to have mashed links...this will cost a lot to the country so it depends always on how much money there is to spend (as always).

VICTOR VELLA (on 6/8/08)
@ Robert Agius, are you living on a shoe string? A fax machine is indispensable for any buisness, it was and still is, if you value effiecency then you need a fax, just imagine you recieve a letter by post and you need to forward i to someone else, do you scan it and then email it? just pop it into the fax .If you keep an account with voucher top up you wont have too much expence and the generator I mentioned only cost me Lm 380 it is silent and gives me a whooping 3Kva so what big buisness? even the normal household affords it, if it wants to stay connected that is, or are we so keen on buying boats and nice cars to play the big buisnessman and then moan and scream when we need things , come people put your priorities on the right track.
Anders Jansson (on 6/8/08)
As long as the infrastructure is 100% owened by the private sector one can never rely on a 100% uptime. If Malta wants to become a major player in the online world and offer a good service to Smart city and all igaming companies on the island making a huuge amount of money to the goverment (sorry to say, not necassarly to the maltese people) they should invest in a fiberoptic link to another location than italy and as said, not dependent on the money making companies. Did you know that in sweden, internet connection is considered to be every mans right so even if unemployeed, the social well fare is paying for you internet connection!!!
c.scerri (on 6/8/08)
Sorry Paul Caruana but you do not know what you are talking about!

The Electricity Cable to Sicily shall not be replacing the local power station - that shall remain in place. It will just connect us to the European grid from where we could supplement our Electricity supplies from the European grid whenever the need arises and when it is convenient and cheap to do so. To an extent, it would in fact reduce the chance of widespread power cuts as we shall have two sources - local and european.

Tony Caruanan (on 6/8/08)
Well Done Go ! Prosit for fixing it. What a bunch of moaners ! As for the gaming companies that somebody mentioned, with the millions they make from poor addicted souls, they should have their own back up !!
GAMING IS LIKE DRUGS.
Anthony Formosa (on 6/8/08)
@ Gerald.

I am sure that for a number of iGaming this was just a nuisance as many had invested in their contingency plans well. In this case many of these business either switched to an alternative provider or switched to their backup sites abroad not to lose transactions. Some may have not been effected since they were not relying on GO connectivity. So before you shout about a big disaster let us look at the big picture. We'll wait for the MRGC for their reaction if there was the disaster you are saying happened

And yes restoring probably full connectivity after just 12 hours is a good job as elsewhere such incidents have taken days. And yes, we should look at today's incident to learn of our vulnerabilities to plan for a better and safer telecoms environment. This is what serious countries do when a disaster strucks them. Just think of 9/11, Tsunami,.Shuttle disasters and many more that happened around the globe.

A. Pace (on 6/8/08)
I have had the internet since 8 years or about 2800 days of uninterruptable service. OK no one likes interruptions, but it was only a half a day in all these. I am speaking as a home user, but there again, when local contractors hit some power cable, they put some production off too.

This to put things into perspective. The important thing is that something is being done to avoid such inconveniences. As the minister said.
Joseph Caruana (on 6/8/08)
Funny update this... As we say in Maltese "Wara kullhadd bravu."

This was by far not the first time that problems developed on the international bandwidth connection, but this was the first major outage that occurred since Malta had two submarine cables connecting it to the rest of the world. Whilst internet outages were acceptable to some degree when there was only the Maltacom/GO cable because there was simply no alternative to the single cable, such incidents are simply not on if there is another route.

Let's all keep in mind that optical fibre cables are capable of carrying far more data than they are currently carrying. So this was not a question of Vodafone's cable not being able to carry the extra load. This was simply a question of none of the wise guys at MCA or Austin Gatt's Ministry ever bothering to come up with a contingency plan.

"MCA to consider better continency planning!!!!!" From the way that things unfolded today, it looks pretty obvious that there is no contingency plan to "better"
john borg (on 6/8/08)
not to press on the alarm button!!! but with the great advances in technology we are ingreasingly putting "all eggs in one basket" computers,mobiles etc. these things run extremely well when everything is fine, a glitch in the cable and half malta is without connention, similirly a power cut lasting a few hours can stop mobiles from accessing their cell, also the increasing amount of data being transfered will demand faster "highways" which in many countries are far from available.............my opinion , we are heading towards a dead end.
Graham Crocker (on 6/8/08)
Ah finally my field. these things happen, cables are not invincible and Malta has a geographical disadvantage when it comes to connectivity, because of the fact that we are surrounded by sea.

I've read many stupid comments, blaming & insulting GO when it was infrastructural works in Sicily that was to blame. Go has no control over Sicilians.
At least they tried to launch back up connectivity which didn't work so well, of course it wouldnt!

Whoever wants money can go to the Sicilians and beg for it Jew-Faced.

What sort of business uses the Main Traffic lines ?
Its either a direct line or satellite & I doubt the validity of a firm that doesn't.

Many firms abroad operate on Satellite Internet & I think maybe that's what Emmy Meant by us being a nation of dilettantes.

I must rephrase, us Maltese we think we know everything, when we know nothing.
Go fixed it up quickly, when I heard there was cable trouble I was thinking a Couple of days and not 11 hours. Well done Go.
G.Grech (on 6/8/08)
For all those moaners who even though they feel lost without their internet service are still leaving in a bubble and have no idea of what happens around the world. This is just to begin with. I will leave it up to you to look for the many other occasions. Ara hux Only in Malta dawn l-affarijiet !?!?!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html
http://www.mydigitallife.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4034&Itemid=36
http://www.out-law.com/page-4108
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39285390,00.htm
http://www.modaco.com/content/windows-mobile-news/258961/huge-orange-uk-network-failure-affects-1-5-million-handsets/
Julian Borg (on 6/8/08)
If you want a 100% guaranteed connection, I think that both major ISPs will be more than happy to provide you with one....at a price of course. Otherwise, you'll have to make do with the occasional interruption. If such interruptions become a frequent affair with your ISP, then you're always free to switch to another, more reliable, ISP. It's not like there's just one company monopolising internet provision in Malta, as is the case with electricity.
Gerald Fenech (on 6/8/08)
Reading some of the comments on this site makes one wonder whether we live on a different planet. Good job? 12 hours without internet is a good job? Tell that to the iGaming companies who depend solely on high quality broadband to channel their transactions. And we want to become a top class ICT destination by 2015!!! What a joke!! 4 submarine cables by 2010! An even bigger joke!! I bet that wouldn't have been announced if this massive fault hadn't occured. Typical spin as usual. Gimme a break!
J Vella (on 6/8/08)
@Emy Bezzina: What are you going on about? Will someone kindly explain what he said?
A Abela (on 6/8/08)
Will we be refunded for the day without internet. Will a deduction be made from our bill?
My business uses internet in its job. Will we be given a compensation for lost sales?
John Schembri (on 6/8/08)
Accidents happen , some are man made and others are caused by nature , I recall that the submerged internet cables in Asia were damaged more than a year ago due to an earthquake.The situation was worse.
Anthony Formosa (on 6/8/08)
Good job. Restoring internet in just a few hours is by no means an easy feat. When Egypt suffered the same some months ago, they together with the Middle East countries suffered for days. Some days ago I was doing some business with a UK counterpart who had his internet service interrupted for 2 full days.

Prosit goes to all parties involved in the process of restoring the internet service. At least during the downtime we enjoyed the Times of Malta site that was up and running and keeping us all updated with the developments. Good Job to TOM staff. Same as you did during the Transport Strike. It is by far the best news site in Malta.
Robert Agius (on 6/8/08)
@ Victor Vella

I hope you are kidding mate! For the money we pay we get the best service?! yeah right!! best service in a 3rd world country perhaps. I understand big businesses having a backup plan if things go wrong but you can't expect that from everyone. We indeed take many things for granted, but things are EXPECTED too!!! A decent service to start with!

ps. Not all businesses have a fax machine so its not always an option.
Dr.Emmy Bezzina,LL.D.,B.A.,Dip.S.Th. (on 6/8/08)
With us everything must be dramatic to the extreme...the reason is because we lack as a nation overall professionalism,discipline,dedication...our ultimate objective is materialism and the money it brings.The World changes and our World is changing beyond recognition for instance from my boyhood world...so let us accept that.There is a place for each and everyone: some are so greedy they want to occupy,usurp and control the whole market - gulping more than one can chew is the saying.Hence let us share all these resources, end the monopoly in any sector once and for all and mishaps like the recent strikes will be avoided because there will always be any alternative in our liberal democracy.It is monopoly that stalls a country - the more we liberalise,the fiercer the competition and all of us in all humility will immediately conclude that no one is indispensible and all are essential for the smooth running of our country in a particular perspective.Hence if we give an honest explaination to the people as to what exactly occurred, there will be much less confusion than attempting to decipher which faction is stating the better lies! That is why we are dilettantes in Malta! ALPHA.
V Farrugia (on 6/8/08)
About high time too!
N Azzopardi (on 6/8/08)
Seriously GO should consider a good compensation for it's users. It's thanks to Vodafone that saved the day!... so much for "smart" Malta!
Ogalea (on 6/8/08)
No man is an island.....but unfortunatley Malta is!!!! This is an opportunity of reflection.

Are we the smart island or are we not? It probably shows the vulnerabilty of Malta's resources and the extent of its dependency on 3rd parties.

If the authorities are striving to promote this island into an IT safe haven, they must assure investors and operators in the business with the maximum guarantee of connectivity with the rest of the world. Internet today means the life and blood of many enterprizes. What appeared simple luxury some years back turns up as lively fresh oxygen in today's age. Local providers must therefore seek other alternative routes....

Malta should not stay an island but should grow up as part of a world.
S. Agius (on 6/8/08)
The companies in Msida have lost 3 days of work in the past 2 months between this incident and the 4 days when power was interrupted. It's useless to repeat the companies that are based in this region and the number of people they employ and thus useless to say how much money has been lost in the process. The underlying factor is that the reality of SmartIsland is still far away.....and i believe another cable will only bring it that much closer!!!
ivan bezzina (on 6/8/08)
First Malta had the public transport strike blocking roads, and now a blocked internet highway, what next?

The classical case of putting all your eggs in one basket. Go temporarily Gone. (Note possibly just restored).

Hope that as Go had their internet service down the best part of a working day, at least they have the decency to compensate those of us paying for a GO internet service,say by extending the internet subscription period, after all they would then bill the costs to the 3rd party who caused the problem.

A generic warning message on the GO front page would have been useful. An estimate of when the service would be back up would have been most welcome. Should have been part of the contingency plan. Although that is easy to say with hindsight.
Christopher Briffa (on 6/8/08)
Due to GO`s poor management and lack of contingency procedures today it feels like we are living back in the good old 80`s, maybe this is Dom Mintoff`s way of reminding us that he is still in charge, considerin that today it`s his 92 nd birthday....lol.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY Perit !
victor vella (on 6/8/08)
Stop moaning you lot. These things happen, have you all forgotten your fax machines? and besides, there are other internet service providers, I have a back up generator and a back up internet service provider, so I didnt stop working, and please do not say ahhhhhhh but the expence, for the service we get and the money we pay we have the best service in the world so shut up and plan your setup, it's your fault for haveing taken things for granted.
F. Towers (on 6/8/08)
Oh dear, Malta the Hub of the iGaming industry...aren't we all glad Vodafones cable is submerged and functioning ?!?
I Abela (on 6/8/08)
@apgrech - If you use your internet connection only to read the Times online, then yes you are spoiled because you could just go buy the printed version. But for businesses such as Online Casinos, Forex Traders such as financial institutions and banks, etc one single day without internet could cost them more than you'll ever earn in a lifetime.

@ All the rest who say businesses MUST have their own backup connection - This is your wake up call. It is 2008 AD. The service providers MUST have THEIR backup plan, so their customers business is not disturbed. Not the other way round. They are not doing us a favour by providing us with an internet connection. We are paying customers. Paying a lot more that other european users actually.
Paul Caruana (on 6/8/08)
This situation brings up a very interesting point - namely how vunerable we would be if we had to depend on a cable linking us to Sicily for our electricity supply - something which our government is seriously considering!

I would appeal to the government not to proceed with its plan ot link us to the european electricity grid. It simply does not make sense for us to end up being dependent on the whims of another country, no matter how friendly it currently is with us, for our vital electricity supply. The money spent on this dangerous link would be much better spent on developing alternative modes of electricity generation locally....such as a solar thermal electrical generating plant situated, say, in comino.
ray pace (on 6/8/08)
Thanks to all involved, full internet is now accessible on GO network.
Frank Gaida (on 6/8/08)
Onvol demonstrated today how good their backup links works. Go demonstrated that they don't care and do not even have a backup link in place.

What do we learn?

Frank

P.S.: Isn't it "law" for the major "ISPs" to have a backup route? The government should look into that and in case there is such a "law" Go should be held liable for all those millions lost today!
Tony CARUANA (on 6/8/08)
And further more to Melita Cable i am sure that GO will come back BIGGER and STRONGER after this experience !!!
Marius Grima (on 6/8/08)
Today’s (6/8/8) internet connectivity situation affecting most Maltese users is shameful to say the least. What’s even worse is that MCA actions/positions are not in the best interest of the users but of the providers... Why did MCA say that “international voice traffic, in situations of emergency such as the present one, is given priority over other bandwidth requirement services”? It should be otherwise: you can use broadband services to perform VOIP - I'm assuming GO gave priority to voice traffic as it gets direct revenue from calls, while the bandwidth is pre-paid. Why are we not benefiting from GO's backup links to the world, or from the contingency Vodafone re-routing plan, 11 hours into this problem?
Marius Grima (on 6/8/08)
I understand you need to set-up and re-configure, but 11 hours!!! Why are business users preferred over personal users in allocating backup service? Isn't this a problem that affects everyone not just businesses... most internet users perform financial transactions over the net...be it eBay, be it internet banking. Aren’t these tangible financial losses as well? I don’t think that MCA is taking the issue seriously enough, at least from the personal users’ point of view.
It is extremely worrying that this morning, even MITTS, the government’s IT arm, was without an overseas link (i.e. all the public service)! Why haven't we seen an official statement from the ministry 11 hours into the problem? For the other gurus commenting here, do you realise that Vodafone and Melita services do not have 100% coverage, and so users like me have only one option: GO (should be renamed to GONE).
a.cassar (on 6/8/08)
Yes, these things do happen. all the more reason to have backup. Do you think it is advisable or safe to be dependant on another country in such an emergency?
Ray Mifsud (on 6/8/08)
Spoiled you said Mr Grech?? what do you use Internet for , video games perhaps or other time wasting downloads. Get real will you please!!, Myself and many many others use this for business not leasure..... Spoiled yeah right..
Jean Paul Galea (on 6/8/08)
I believe that Go should do a reality check one of those days and instead of boasting that they are the only company in malta to offer a multitude of services, they should offer fewer services of better quality. It seems that recently Go are not able to cope with competition. When they are faced with competition they have these canned phrases like we are going to upgrade to 12 mbit in the next month.... next months could be years. Now today the net is down ... not our fault telecom italia problem but we have backup plans. Its now 18:35 and its been almost 10 hrs without net thanks god it not my only means of communication with the outside world. I hope that go would face this responsibility.
John Portelli (on 6/8/08)
GO said earlier this year it would invest in its second submarine cable with a separate landing point in Italy, and with a different provider than Telecom Italia. Seems this project will be completed by end of year. Surely accidents happen and every operator in Malta with its own submarine cable should be wary of such incidents - and yes, each should provide resiliency to each other.
GO's service is more than adequate, and i believe it does provide good value for money. Today's incident does not change my perception of the company - ultimately they will be the only company in Malta offering 2 independent submarine cables to Europe. So Smart City, gaming companies and all the other international and local companies - rest assured.
Robert Agius (on 6/8/08)
@J Schembri

You can probably use normal mail services. Problem is by the time your comments arrive no one will be interested in what you have to say because there will be another more topical subject and this will be history. Mind you with Santa Marija week on our doorstep we will likely have little to comment about!

I just hope the MCA take whatever action is necessary to ensure we never experience this sort of ridiculous outage again. It would also help us unsuspecting consumers to know what guarantees the MCA certifies to ensure there is full redundancy and not 'almost, full redundancy. Some of us will be more than happy to pay a premium for that peace of mind if that is what it comes to.
m gatt (on 6/8/08)
I don't know why we are already complaining about compensation when we don't know what the compensation will be.

We are speaking about this issue as if its happening every day. Apart from that switching to other networks won't help a thing since they only have one cable as well. Go plans from the begining of the year where to place another cable which will be terminated at the end of this year. Unfortunately this issue had to happen now if it happened later we wouldn't suffer this situation. Apart from that no one can see the future and forthcome certain things, you can only plan and Go did plan for this year. Apart from that no other network company apart from go is planning to install anther cable so again GO will be the leading telecommunications company.
Michael Ellul (on 6/8/08)
My internet is fast and worked great all day. Thanks waldonet and i'm with adsl thus a good service provider is what everyone need. Don't book directly with operators book your services through providers. Been with waldonet since 1997 those years they where called orbit great service all these years.
Anthony Formosa (on 6/8/08)
In every operational activity there is risk which cannot be 100% mitigated. Accidents like this happen and will continue to happen. What boils down to businesses and individuals who are so reliant on internet connectivity is to manage these risks and seek to provide redundancy to their businesses and requirements. At least now in Malta there is the possibility of providing international communications services as soon as monopolies were removed and more that one provider entered the market. Obviously this is not the end of the journey. There is still more to be done by the Govt, MCA and telecommunication providers in this field.

While we can grumble over the loss of internet service in these hours, we can only hope that an investigation is carried out on what happened and how it effected the country. Such investigations should result in lessons learned and should provide strategic orientation on where our country needs to be in the coming years. This is part of the essence of ICT Governance as a country and in each business entity.
apgrech (on 6/8/08)
M Muscat said: "I do believe that such an important asset for our country should not be in the hands of private operators, but in the hands of the Government."

M Muscat, you must be dreaming!!! If it were in the hands of the Government, we'd be a whole week without internet service. Hope no one from Castille reads your comment :))
Ramon Zammit (on 6/8/08)
I know a thing or two about these type of problems and I assure everyone that this is no ride in the park. Let's hope that GO and MCA come up with a backup solution should something like this reoccur. Leaving people without Internet is like having workers without arms nowadays and I hope that by this evening the link is restored.
effie carbonaro (on 6/8/08)
only in malta
apgrech (on 6/8/08)
Back in the 80's and early 90's, we didn't even know what internet means Now we are so dependent and we go crazy when something like this happens - and that's includes me because I'm in a state of panic without full internet access.

We're spoiled, aren't we? :))
apgrech (on 6/8/08)
Back in the 80's and early 90's, we didn't even know what internet means Now we are so dependent and we go crazy when something like this happens - and that's includes me because I'm in a state of panic without full internet access.

We're spoiled, aren't we? :))
B Micallef (on 6/8/08)
Seeing that we have one of the costliest internet services in Europe, these things should not happen !! What next? An increase in their internet tariffs ??!!??
Joseph A Borg (on 6/8/08)
I have been without internet for a whole day and need it for work. These things happen, if your business depends on the internet get another provider as backup, something I'm contemplating for next year. A few months ago 4 cables were 'accidentally' cut around Egypt leaving whole chunks of the middle and far east disconnected from the west.
Come on people, everybody complaining! These things happen. What I gripe about is that they don't have an easily accessible service health monitor webpage. I could have planned the day differently.
On the whole we are better off than semi-rural parts of the mighty old USofA.
Alex Ellul (on 6/8/08)
@Joe Borg: What if our power stations go tilt?
d attard (on 6/8/08)
Well, it is high time that this country realizes how vulnerable we are as an island nation.
A simple fault in a cable can cause so much problems and loss of business to all concerned.

Now next time Go announces an increase in its profits once again, we will know that it was us customers who contributed to profits for a company that did not ensure it had the required redundancy.

I also do not think Melita Cable have much to shout about. Try and get hold of their customer care branch in connection with Melita Cable TV and see how long it takes to get an answer from them.

This is what near monopolies cause!
J. Schembri (on 6/8/08)
Besides the net, is there another way to post a comment on this blog?
Doris Aquilina (on 6/8/08)
What a mess, and i was so stupid to change from Vodafone. Do hope it won't take days.
Michael Jones (on 6/8/08)
Stop blaming the ISPs.

There are multiple links out of Malta, any serious international company that wants a business continuity plan has to think ahead and responsibly get a back up line / alternate route out. Lines go down all around the world this is by far not an 'Only in Malta' occurrence.

On the other hand seeing that power in Malta is a monopoly should there ever be a Malta Sicily power link the authorities should definitely bear 100% responsibility for any failures. However this is Malta we are talking about, I think we are still introducing the words responsibility and accountability in our vocabulary.
Mario Nicchia (on 6/8/08)
@ Joe Borg

I fully back up your reasoning. Unfortunately in Malta you are experiencing deskilling. Closing down of drydocks, seamalta, factories and the power station are causing you to have to depend on other countries. Scarily, the majority of your population is not even understanding that this is happening to your beautiful country. It seems that in Malta only the IT sector is important. (Which is, however you need a balance)

Closing down the power station may have a beneficial enviroment impact however it is the last example of how your goverment is not at ease with production and skills. Everyone knows that producing something is cheaper than buying it, yet you prefer sending money to European countries rather than producing it yourself (which they tell me, you have been doing since the british were in your country.) I wonder when you will understand that by importing nearly everything is damaging your economy. Imports need to be balanced by exports. R u working hard enough for this? It does not seem so according to EU benchmarks. So be strong and don't lose all the capabilities and competencies that your nation has built throughut the years.
Tori Graham (on 6/8/08)
i blame gonzi ;> almost 10 hours of absent international connection says enough for me ,
Mark Anthony Portelli (on 6/8/08)
To all Go customers, change to other providers who really provide a service and a customer care. We have been experience slow speeds and other problems on the adsl network, this is enough. Onvol service has improved allot in these last months. This is my last month with GO! Thanks to MCA policies, investors, clients and other business lost money today because of a bunch of non-technical guys working and wasting the authorities money. I hope Austin Gatt will take action aswell!!
Jean Paul Galea (on 6/8/08)
I believe that companies who have lost business due to Go incompetence should sue the company for damages but i believe as always go has put some small text in the contract so that it cannot happen.
Andrew Micallef (on 6/8/08)
I think it's of people's interest to check what they are applying for when purchasing internet service. Go might have/had better prices or better download limit, but for onvol if you just ask around, they do have backup connection, that's why you might also pay a bit more, you will always find better prices but definitely not with better service or quality. In this case its proven
Jean Paul Galea (on 6/8/08)
Prosit Go for the professional service you offer. Being an IT guy for the last years i realised that in IT redundancy is everything. How can such a big company not have any form of redundancy for its major income ie Internet. As reported Go said they are switching to microwave links etc. Shouldn't this happen automatically as soon as the cable connection fails. If a real contingency plan ever existed the system would have failed over automatically maybe slowed down but the system would still be running on the said microwave connection.
Mark Galea (on 6/8/08)
Dont know who benefited from the "satellite and microwave" backup links because I did not. Seems the usual "taken for a ride" story.
Martin Büttner (on 6/8/08)
Consumer rights in Malta must be strengthened!
The question about compensation for the lost internet time (downtime) hast to be asked.
Here in my hometown (near Stuttgart, Germany) I and a few thousand other clients of that ISP were without internet for a whole day last autumn. As a compensation for the inconveniences caused we were granted a 5% discount with our next invoice. This was done automatically, without any big announcement.
This is what I call good customer service.
But can we expect this from Go or any other company in Malta?
Robert Grech (on 6/8/08)
The Malta-Sicily Link is damaged.. international sites can be accessed without much difficulty.. Local sites such as MEPA site are impossible to connect with.. Can someone explain?
ray pace (on 6/8/08)
Let there be competition, but come on, when such emergencies happen, these companies should unite and share their resources for the benefit of our island and then it would only be fair that the company that uses these resources pays for them. By moaning and enticing customers to switch operator will not solve the problem because the same thing could happen to other operators too. Having a second cable will help but there is no guarantee that this will solve any eventual damage as that occurring today. Remember we are an island and depend on submarine cables!
Joseph Aquilina (on 6/8/08)
@Peter Bugeja
If you feel that GO treated you so badly and that they cannot be trustworthy then take your business somewhere else :) However I think Vodafone also has a single link with Europe. So what will you do when an accident happens on their link?

Additionally I think that GO did not hook up with Vodaphone purely for technical reasons. Not sure if the link Vodaphone has can handle the traffic of both Vodaphone and GO clients.
K Goodlip (on 6/8/08)
This fault has'nt affected me at all.
My ISP, namely Waldonet, is dual homed, meaning that it gets its bandwidth from 2 sources. When GO developed the fault this morning, Waldonet just made ammends and there was almost no downtime.
Sergio Galea Vincenti (on 6/8/08)
In an age where regulators impose on players in key sectors to provide for standards-based disaster-recovery sites and plans - for example in financial services - I find it inconceivable that the MCA has allowed operators to rely on less than satisfactory fallbacks.

Whilst competition should have heralded a certain seriousness on the part of providers, it seems that at the very basic level, Maltese users have been taken for a ride: How shall GO compensate its users - domestic or commercial - for the downtime and disruption? I believe that since it failed to provide for adequate backup facilities, at the very least the MCA should impose GO to refund the portion of monthly fees which are paid by clients.

This accident should serve as a warning to the Government that when we talk of our IT industry and aspirations and on how 'Smart' Malta is becoming, we have to look first and foremost at the infrastructure.
Joe Borg (on 6/8/08)
I wonder how Malta will react once the proposed electricity cable between Malta and Sicily will be commisioned and a fault of this sort occurs.

This electrical interconnection is being acclaimed 'to be our survival connection to the main land'. Am I the only one who thinks it is a bad idea to have our island dependant on a cable linked to the rest of Europe via a couple of switches?! What if the cable/inverter/circuit breakers etc go faulty? Could Malta's economy and exigent consumers cope with whole days of interrupted supply?

G Muscat (on 6/8/08)
We have been crippled by GO's single point of failure. in spite of repeated quizzing as to redundancy facilities we have always been told that there is no single point of failure. The truth is somewhat different and the MCA must now show its teeth and take appropriate action. GO have managed to tarnish an almost immaculate reputation.

As victims we would like to know the significance of: "Go has been in contact with Vodafone Malta for emergency backup services should these be required." Oh right, so are they sharing capuccino's, chewing the fat and pondering at what point we get to 'should these be required'......we require them NOW!!! Cost is not the issue!

Another gem is "Go was 'totally focused' to solving the problem as soon as possible". I should bloody well hope so!!! Duh!!!

This is a great PR coup for Vodafone adn Onvol - there will be a queue of new customers purchasing backup links from tomorrow!!!

Thomas Gatt (on 6/8/08)
@ Mark Grech
I fully agree with you.
Peter Bugeja (on 6/8/08)
Faults can always happen. But why is GO allowed to operate if it has a single point of failure?

Why do they (GO) tell me on the phone that they would never use Vodafone as a backup link since that is a competitor and in the press release they say something different!

Why is it allowed that one single ISP causes x times as much damage to the industry than a bloody bus strike?

What a smart island this is...........
Tony Caruana (on 6/8/08)
Trust Melta cable to take advantage in the situation The truth is that if Melita cable was the Only company left in the world a lot of people would still prefer to stay without service than join them
Joseph Caruana (on 6/8/08)
This all boils down to sheer incompetence by the Malta Communications Authority the watchdog that's supposed to make sure that such rare situations do not occur... ever!!!

We all know that the link to Malta is a mere branch on the internet and that there is no redundant infrastructure should anything go wrong on one of the submarine cables. The MCA should have made it obligatory for all international bandwidth providers to fall back on each others' infrastructure through the local backbone, should anyone of them suffer a catastrophic failure like the one experienced by Go today.

Malta cannot afford to have half the population cut from the rest of the online world. These things are not supposed to happen in a country with Smart Island aspirations. The MCA should wake up and smell the coffee and stop being fussy on the petty of things and an absentee watchdog on crucial matters such as international connectivity.
M. Brincat (on 6/8/08)
7 hours into the problem ... still no solution.

re. refunds ... let's do some basic calculations - for the common and cheapest €13.85 subscriptions - €13.85 / 31 days in a month / 24 hours in a day x 7 hours downtime = €0.13 refund ... cool! lol!!!

I do believe that such an important asset for our country should not be in the hands of private operators, but in the hands of the Government.
A cassar (on 6/8/08)
We've lost a whole day of business! Where is the backup that GO is offering???? We have not had internet access, emails or IP phones for a whole day! Should we as customers have a backup by having more than one ISP? or should GO - a mega company in Malta owners of SMART City provide a backup??? This is the kind of service that Go can offer??? This is a farce...so much for lip service GO!

David Bailey (on 6/8/08)
@Karen Borg
Just about 3 months ago a major cable was damaged near Egypt, rendering most of the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa without internet, including Dubai. These things happen, not frequently but they do. They had to re-route traffic through Asia and America..

What we need are more cables and more use of satellite connections. I'm not sure what GO's backup connections are (they mentioned satellite and microwave) but most customers and businesses are still without internet..

@Adrian Borg
Change ISP? this can happen to anyone.. it's not a question of ISPs or monopolies. But the ISPs should reach some agreement and offer fail-over services between themselves, something that is obviously not in place.

Anyway, I'm getting Internet withdrawal symptoms, so back to refreshing the Times every couple of seconds :-)
Jenny Calleja (on 6/8/08)
“Luckily, Onvol customers don’t seem to be affected”
P Sultana (on 6/8/08)
On their web site, GO claim to be "Malta's Leading Telecoms Provider". If this is true, I shudder to think what kind of service their competitors provide.

The article says "The MCA said Go has been in contact with Vodafone Malta for emergency backup services should these be required." Please somebody tell them that the backup service was needed hours ago! I am still without my internet!

The article adds that: "Go plc some months ago announced it would lay a second submarine cable to Sicily." Was this a serious announcement by a Maltese public company? What happened? Why wasn't it installed? Was it just an empty statement?

Is this what we are offering investors is Malta?


Mark Grech (on 6/8/08)
Surely as the major Telecom provider to the Island, Go should have built in redundancy for just such an eventuality? It perhaps behoves the MCA to facilitate the regulatory framework to set up a 'Hub' in Malta to effectively ensure such redundancy and back-up for ALL internet providers on the island, as is the case overseas. What can happen to Go's submarine cable today can happen to the other broadband providers too.
M. Brincat (on 6/8/08)
Franco, it seems that I'm alright so eff u Jack! Come on dear. There's a problem - we moan! That's normal, isn't it??
Ramon Casha (on 6/8/08)
@FF "Are you serious?"

Um...... no :-)

C Mallia (on 6/8/08)
A couple of hours of downtime is enough for a major website to go bankrupt or make an irreparably bad name for itself. A fall-back contingency plan must be in place to take over such occurrences within minutes and there is no excuses to it. Many huge websites pride themselves of minimal downtime (if any) of just acouple of minutes a year. No expenses must be spared, if Malta wants to be taken seriously in the IT world
Andrea Pullicino (on 6/8/08)
@P.Sultana: I am wondering how great you private IT firm must be if it does not plan ahead for such real-world situations. Maybe you could suggest to your IT dept that they invest in some form of redundancy. GO are also currently offering backup satellite and microwave connectivity where needed so we are not as isolated as some comments make us out to be.
I. M. Dingli (on 6/8/08)
Well by biggest concern is not being without internet for some time until repairs are made. Actually i'm more concerned about the fact that whenever problems like these occur, we (customers) are never compensated for the loss. Go will definetly get some form of compensation from the company whose actions effected the cable in question but us, GO clients get no refund, be it access time or monetary!

This happens all the time with other companies and not GO only. Customers are always at a loss!
Franco Farrugia (on 6/8/08)
Oh get a grip, all of you! Scaremongers! A bunch of moaners!!!!
I have been enjoying Internet and international calling all day long!
You should have taken a holiday and gone to the seaside!
Karen Borg (on 6/8/08)
It seems that all the money flowing in from Dubai, can’t help GO overcome their problems. I wonder if these major problems ever occur in Dubai.
Fransoaise Flerurant (on 6/8/08)

@ Ramon Casha
'If we're to be taken seriously as an IT superpower or whatever we're supposed to be, our infrastructure needs to be much more reliable than this.' .......IT superpower?? Are you serious? Please look around
Adrian Borg (on 6/8/08)
I believe Melita also has a separate link to Sicily as from May this year. So you know what to do just switch provider :) This is the benefit that there's no monopoly anymore.
Tonio Mallia (on 6/8/08)
Go has activated backup satellite and microwave links. !!!

OK then, why the heck is my internet service out of action????
Martin Büttner (on 6/8/08)
@ M.Brincat

That makes it easier to predict how successful SmartCity will be and how many big International companies can be attracted to Malta
Let's now wait for Go's crisis management. In 6 hours we can say more: Either FAIL or SUCCEED.

Wanna makes bets?
P Sultana (on 6/8/08)
I work for one of the major private firms in Malta and I've had no international internet access for most of the day. Enough said!
Alex Ellul (on 6/8/08)
@Martin Buttner: very well put.
@P. Sultana: Where are your solutions to the problem? Do you have any to offer? Or just the usual policy of destructive criticism? It will get you nowhere, just pulls you and your mentors further down the gutter. Could it be that the cable was damaged by the greatly expected massive earthshaking quake? Or is it just a case of a mountain giving birth to a mouse?
Chris Cauchi (on 6/8/08)
Just an idea. If there are two cables, can't go users switch to Vodafone and vice versa when there's a fault on the Vodafone cable.
Like this no service is interrupted and business lost.

Then at the end of the year the company which had used the other cable most when things have gone wrong pay some sort of compensation.

I don't think its rocket science!
M. Brincat (on 6/8/08)
Martin ... SmartCity IS GO!!!!!
Martin Büttner (on 6/8/08)
Accidents can happen and they do happen. Now all involved parties (the company responsible for the damaging of the cable, the operators on the Sicilian side, Go and other connected service operators on the Maltese side) have to show how good their crisis management is.
If they fail to bring their connected internet users and services (websides, email servers, etc.) back online fast, the SmartCity consortium should think very well about whether or not appointing Go as their major partner for internet services.
Let me sa it again: Accidents happen, but the crisis management of a company then shows how good it is.
Jason Fenech (on 6/8/08)
There are at least 2 separate submarine links in use by Go and Vodafone respectively. This means that not all international business has stopped. If you're a cable internet user you know this already. It's only businesses without redundant links that are having a bad day. Smartcity will obviously have redundant links with automatic failover. And no, I don't work for the MCA, no interest in Smartcity, just an IT guy who happens to know a thing or two.
P Sultana (on 6/8/08)
@Alex Ellul
It's apologists like you that are the ruin of this country. The Maltese find excuses for every failure, and just look around us, there are many failures. Guys ... WAKE UP ... we're in Europe now ... lets start by striving for competence ...
Joseph Muscat (on 6/8/08)
Malta is served with two submarine cables; one of these operated by Vodafone is fully working. All Vodafone's bandwidth clients have not suffered any loss of traffic or connectivity - these clients are isp's, gaming operators, IT companies, banks and other corporates.
Vodafone is currently working with GO to assist them in provisioning capacity.
K Ellul (on 6/8/08)
Wow, the Smart Island is isolated!!

No back up plan Dr. Gatt ??
Alex Ellul (on 6/8/08)
@P. Sultana: Bet you know exactly what's to be done, everywhere, every time. Would you like to apply for the post of God?
Ramon Casha (on 6/8/08)
One stray anchor and SmartMalta™ vanishes off the map!

If we're to be taken seriously as an IT superpower or whatever we're supposed to be, our infrastructure needs to be much more reliable than this.
P Sultana (on 6/8/08)
A submarine cable linking Malta to Europe is faulty: Europe is isolated!
P Sultana (on 6/8/08)
What a farce! The MCA are "monitoring" the situation, in the meantime suspend interntaional business with Malta because a cable developed a fault. But it not 'our' responsibility! Utter incompetence!
Martin Frendo (on 6/8/08)
this is costing revenue and disruption on services . centralisation has it drawbacks and hiccups...

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