2008: A year in review
The year 2008 will go down in history as the time when internet became part of mainstream Maltese politics, where social networking sites confirmed their role in the Maltese information society, and when the Maltese had to wake up and smell the coffee...
The year 2008 will go down in history as the time when internet became part of mainstream Maltese politics, where social networking sites confirmed their role in the Maltese information society, and when the Maltese had to wake up and smell the coffee brewed by frantic anti-hacking attempts to figure out how passwords of e-mail accounts on the government network could be hacked by amateurs far away from Malta.
This, in a nutshell, is the story of 2008, another year in which the Maltese islands registered yet more progress in the quest of exploiting information and communication technology. However, there are lessons to be learned too.
The first important event of the year was the successful changeover to the euro, with the ICT systems performing well, the exception being the lone ATM that did not give the Prime Minister the first euro notes at midnight on December 31.
The general elections held in March saw internet playing a significant role for the first time in Maltese political history. It was quite clear from the start that the Nationalist Party was going to exploit it, and the tsunami of comments on http://www.timesofmalta.com proved that online voters were receptive and ready to participate in this form of e-democracy. Perhaps confirmation of this came in the report on the electoral defeat of the Malta Labour Party which admitted that given the small margin of votes between the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party "we can conclude that internet was one of the factors that could have contributed towards the defeat".
The PN victory saw Austin Gatt confirmed with the IT portfolio, this time including the communications sector. The timing was also the right one for change in the chairmanship of the Malta Communications Authority, with Philip Micallef, former CEO of Melita Cable and Malta Enterprise, taking over from Joseph V. Tabone who retired.
Speaking of Melita Cable, the company continued to embark on its strategy to become a quad-player, i.e. provide fixed-line telephony, mobile telephony, internet access and TV services. The mobile telephony network was constructed during the year and the company has already announced that its mobile service will start in February.
This year saw the birth of the first mobile virtual network operators that do not own their own infrastructure but ride on a mobile network operator. Red Touch, owned by the Labour Party, and Bay Mobile, owned by the Eden Leisure Group, were launched towards the end of summer.
In terms of mobile services, in October Vodafone Malta launched the iconic Apple iPhone 3G locally and was the first to offer the Blackberry corporate solutions, followed by Go a few weeks later.
This year was also a watershed for digital radio and TV, as the number of digital TV subscribers exceeded the number of analogue subscribers for the first time. Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) trials also commenced, providing the first digital radio experience in the country.
2008 started in a very promising way in terms of internet access, with the government offering broadband high-speed access at low cost through the very successful Blue Skies scheme. This led to an unprecedented increase in the number of broadband subscriptions. Acc-ording to official statistics, the majority of these are cable internet, the rest being ADSL with a couple of thousand of WiMax wireless broadband subscriptions.
Summer did not prove to be very positive for internet users. On August 6 a technical fault on Go's submarine data cable in Sicily left several thousands Maltese internet users without access almost for a whole day. The incident showed how vulnerable our country still is in terms of connectivity and the fact that no back-up plans were in place for such an emergency. The MCA has since then started to work with local internet service providers to have a back-up in place.
Resilience in Malta's link to the rest of the world will be beefed up with Go's second cable laid in December and Melita's plans to have its own cable as announced this year. Vodafone concluded an upgrade to its cable earlier this year.
The quality of broadband internet in Malta remains low however, as a survey by the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo and sponsored by Cisco showed. Malta was ranked towards the end of the list of EU countries.
The long, hot summer was not yet over, as an incident in September showed yet again how our ICT systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. The so-called "Mittsgate" erupted when the government admitted that over 20,000 passwords of e-mail accounts on the government network, including accounts of Members of Parliament and members of the Judiciary were stolen in a hacking attack at the beginning of this month. The case caused an uproar.
An e-mail from the Nationalist Party secretary general sent to the wrong person triggered another controversy over what the Labour Party claims to be a "network of espionage" in the country.
All this happened while the post of Data Protection Commissioner was vacant after the death of Paul Mifsud Cremona earlier in the year. Joseph Ebejer is his successor.
Another controversy made headlines, this one centred on allegations of wrongdoing in the adjudication of a tender to provide private tuition services to Mcast students.
SmartCity Malta continued to make headlines, as the project moved ahead. Claudio Grech, former head of secretariat at the Ministry for IT, was appointed CEO of SmartCity Malta and the first phase of the project was launched in June. Mepa approved the outline development permit for the construction of the township and the construction of the first state-of-the-art office block which should be ready in 2010. BV Joint Venture, an affiliation between Bonnici Brothers Ltd and Ballut Blocks Ltd, has been assigned the construction of this building according to LEED, the world's premier certification programme for sustainable buildings.
In June, the Maltese government announced it is ready to consider the adoption of open source software which is developed in the public since its source code is made available for modifications before implementation.
The first edition of the Digital Arts Expo was successfully organised in July but the traditional annual IT&T exhibition, scheduled for September, did not take place affected by internal problems at the Malta Fairs and Convention Centre and low interest from potential exhibitors.
The budget speech for 2009 delivered in November had little on the information and communication technology sector. However, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech mentioned some very important initiatives to boost the Maltese knowledge economy, especially research and development, in contrast to the scant reference in last year's budget speech.
This, in a nutshell, is the story of 2008, another year in which the Maltese islands registered yet more progress in the quest of exploiting information and communication technology. However, there are lessons to be learned too.
The first important event of the year was the successful changeover to the euro, with the ICT systems performing well, the exception being the lone ATM that did not give the Prime Minister the first euro notes at midnight on December 31.
The general elections held in March saw internet playing a significant role for the first time in Maltese political history. It was quite clear from the start that the Nationalist Party was going to exploit it, and the tsunami of comments on http://www.timesofmalta.com proved that online voters were receptive and ready to participate in this form of e-democracy. Perhaps confirmation of this came in the report on the electoral defeat of the Malta Labour Party which admitted that given the small margin of votes between the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party "we can conclude that internet was one of the factors that could have contributed towards the defeat".
The PN victory saw Austin Gatt confirmed with the IT portfolio, this time including the communications sector. The timing was also the right one for change in the chairmanship of the Malta Communications Authority, with Philip Micallef, former CEO of Melita Cable and Malta Enterprise, taking over from Joseph V. Tabone who retired.
Speaking of Melita Cable, the company continued to embark on its strategy to become a quad-player, i.e. provide fixed-line telephony, mobile telephony, internet access and TV services. The mobile telephony network was constructed during the year and the company has already announced that its mobile service will start in February.
This year saw the birth of the first mobile virtual network operators that do not own their own infrastructure but ride on a mobile network operator. Red Touch, owned by the Labour Party, and Bay Mobile, owned by the Eden Leisure Group, were launched towards the end of summer.
In terms of mobile services, in October Vodafone Malta launched the iconic Apple iPhone 3G locally and was the first to offer the Blackberry corporate solutions, followed by Go a few weeks later.
This year was also a watershed for digital radio and TV, as the number of digital TV subscribers exceeded the number of analogue subscribers for the first time. Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) trials also commenced, providing the first digital radio experience in the country.
2008 started in a very promising way in terms of internet access, with the government offering broadband high-speed access at low cost through the very successful Blue Skies scheme. This led to an unprecedented increase in the number of broadband subscriptions. Acc-ording to official statistics, the majority of these are cable internet, the rest being ADSL with a couple of thousand of WiMax wireless broadband subscriptions.
Summer did not prove to be very positive for internet users. On August 6 a technical fault on Go's submarine data cable in Sicily left several thousands Maltese internet users without access almost for a whole day. The incident showed how vulnerable our country still is in terms of connectivity and the fact that no back-up plans were in place for such an emergency. The MCA has since then started to work with local internet service providers to have a back-up in place.
Resilience in Malta's link to the rest of the world will be beefed up with Go's second cable laid in December and Melita's plans to have its own cable as announced this year. Vodafone concluded an upgrade to its cable earlier this year.
The quality of broadband internet in Malta remains low however, as a survey by the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo and sponsored by Cisco showed. Malta was ranked towards the end of the list of EU countries.
The long, hot summer was not yet over, as an incident in September showed yet again how our ICT systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. The so-called "Mittsgate" erupted when the government admitted that over 20,000 passwords of e-mail accounts on the government network, including accounts of Members of Parliament and members of the Judiciary were stolen in a hacking attack at the beginning of this month. The case caused an uproar.
An e-mail from the Nationalist Party secretary general sent to the wrong person triggered another controversy over what the Labour Party claims to be a "network of espionage" in the country.
All this happened while the post of Data Protection Commissioner was vacant after the death of Paul Mifsud Cremona earlier in the year. Joseph Ebejer is his successor.
Another controversy made headlines, this one centred on allegations of wrongdoing in the adjudication of a tender to provide private tuition services to Mcast students.
SmartCity Malta continued to make headlines, as the project moved ahead. Claudio Grech, former head of secretariat at the Ministry for IT, was appointed CEO of SmartCity Malta and the first phase of the project was launched in June. Mepa approved the outline development permit for the construction of the township and the construction of the first state-of-the-art office block which should be ready in 2010. BV Joint Venture, an affiliation between Bonnici Brothers Ltd and Ballut Blocks Ltd, has been assigned the construction of this building according to LEED, the world's premier certification programme for sustainable buildings.
In June, the Maltese government announced it is ready to consider the adoption of open source software which is developed in the public since its source code is made available for modifications before implementation.
The first edition of the Digital Arts Expo was successfully organised in July but the traditional annual IT&T exhibition, scheduled for September, did not take place affected by internal problems at the Malta Fairs and Convention Centre and low interest from potential exhibitors.
The budget speech for 2009 delivered in November had little on the information and communication technology sector. However, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech mentioned some very important initiatives to boost the Maltese knowledge economy, especially research and development, in contrast to the scant reference in last year's budget speech.