Better regulation on connectivity sought
Alternattiva Demokratika has urged the Malta Communication Authority (MCA) to strengthen regulations on internet provision in Malta.
"Recent events have shown how fragile the current provision of internet in Malta can be. There are for the moment only two cables connecting the local internet to the European backbone, each of them owned by a private company. Regulations should be in place for extraordinary events: each cable operator has to be allowed to use appropriate bandwidth from its competitor when technical faults occur in their cable connectivity," the party said.
Henrik Piski, the party's IT spokesman, said: "During the internet cable connectivity interruption which happened to GO 10days ago, the public realized that there was no real fallback procedure in place. GO users were not able to use the international internet connection. As Malta has a particular geographical position and connectivity to the international hub is only provided by two companies, the MCA has to make sure that these serious events do not happen again. It is not acceptable to have to wait months or years till alternative cables to the next hub are put in place".
"The existing infrastructure has to be fairly shared between the two operators under the supervision of the Malta Communication Authority in these extraordinary circumstances."
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Maria Schembri
Aug 17th 2008, 12:32
Within the next few months GO will be the only ISP that will have a second cable connected to a different place and connected to a different company, so in my opinion GO are the only ones who have a clear view of the future and where they want to be.
It seems that I'm the only one who thinks that there was something fishy in all of this. I'm sure that Vodafone had been contacted within the first 30 minutes of the disconnection to set up some kind of arrangement. I have a distinct feeling that Vodafone have asked for an insane amount of money in return, which would have been more feasible for GO to decline and loose all their customers, and risk it than accept what was being proposed. Am I the only one who sees this? I think that MCA should have been present at the time of discussions, and regulated all of this, but it seems that it's another useless 'authority' which is there just for it's name, and to reduce the amount of people registering at ETC!!
B.Borg
Aug 17th 2008, 11:57
"The existing infrastructure has to be fairly shared between the two operators under the supervision of the Malta Communication Authority in these extraordinary circumstances."
If a private-owned business invest millions from its own money to be in a position to head the competitors, why our politicians have to interfere in such cases? Have the communications market been liberalised or not?
A. Falzon
Aug 17th 2008, 10:42
Go users suffered a serious setback 10 days ago when the cable connecting Malta to the rest of Europe and the world was damaged in Sicily. I sincerely hope that 'Smart City' will not depend on such a fragile connection.