New regulations provide better interconnectivity

The Malta Communications Authority has drawn up new regulations to ensure better collaboration between Go and Vodafone to diminish the risks of a repeat of the Go cable fault, which left thousands of users without a service on August 6.

The government and the MCA have been working together during the last few months to obtain clearance from the European Commission to offer fiscal incentives to assist private enterprises interested in investing in additional connections, and provide more backup in instances of emergency.

The key to resilience is to have alternative bandwidth capacity available in real-time, and not days or weeks after it is needed," a spokesman for the MCA told The Sunday Times.

Last week Go accused competitor Vodafone of procrastinating during the outage and of only offering a solution that would be in place "within weeks".

The new regulations will ensure that a level of back-up capacity in international connectivity is deployed in real-time mode as necessary.

Primarily, the regulations will safeguard against total loss of service by obliging operators to ensure the integrity, security and resilience of their connection and to secure adequate reserve capacity on alternative infrastructures.

MCA may also require that certain information be made public in order to ensure that subscribers and users of the services can make informed choices regarding the provision of international services.

"The availability of information from service providers regarding the level of service that they offer in the event of such breakdowns should enable customers to choose the right package that serves their individual needs," said the MCA.

The government will shortly be publishing these draft regulations for consultation.

The laying and operating of submarine cables involves significant private investment.

The initial capital investment alone for every submarine cable can be estimated at around €10 million.