Update 4: Melita to offer free downloads for a month after internet disruption

Neil Payne

Aug 15th 2009, 11:10

This is no compensation... How many people do you think regularly reach their download limit? I'm guessing, but i don' t think this "compensation" will cost Melita anything.

Matthew Borg

Aug 12th 2009, 18:33

@John Carabott

One cannot compare Enemalta to Melita because Melita can agree a redundancy plan with other companies while Enemalta no.

In Melita's case its' users had no internet cause of its' inefficiency. Had Melita reached a redundancy agreement with another ISP its' customers wouldn't have lost their internet connection. Melita should take much more care of its' clients. Maybe they should focus more on what they already offer then broaden their services at the expense of quality.

Jurgen Agius

Aug 9th 2009, 19:02

@Matthew Borg

Neither me don't agree with you.
so i will give you another example. so as you are saying if i have company/supermarket or something else factory my own business which i make money from etc... i should trust enemalta always and i don't make a backup system like a generator or something like that because i am paying and they should have a backup plan! i fully disagree with you i am very sorry becuase if you want to work you always have to make a backup plan for everything!! Enemalta Outages are very happening frequently around malta but no one complains whyy?? because they have a monopoly and also if you change an ISP every ISP can fail becuase everyone can have technical difficulties nobody's system is PERFECT!! Nothing IS perfect!!! One day or another something will fail for sure!

Matthew Borg

Aug 7th 2009, 14:30

@John Carabott

I am sorry but I don't agree with you, since the client is paying for the service, the ISP has to have a backup plan. In this case Melita should have agreed a redundancy plan with another company.

If a client has to buy a secondary internet connection cause an ISP isn't efficient enough, then that person should change ISP and not pay a second internet connection to accomodate his ISP's inefficiencies.

Jurgen Agius

Jul 31st 2009, 21:04

Third of Malta without water
A third of Malta was without water last night and will remain so for most of the day, a spokesman for the Water Services Corporation said.

The spokesman said that due to an electricity failure, the water reverse osmosis at Pembroke could not be operated and the water supply to St Julian's, Pembroke, Gzira, Sliema, San Gwann, Ta' Giorni, Ta' l-Ibragg, Paceville, St Andrew's, Bahar ic-Caghaq, Birkirkara, Msida, Swieqi, Ta' Xbiex and Kappara was terminated at 11.10 p.m.

The supply would be returning to normal gradually throughout the day and should be in place by 5 to 6 p.m. at the latest, the spokesman said.



ASK THEM FOR A COMPENSATION ALSO FOR LEAVING YOU DIRTY FOR ONE DAY & NIGHT!!!!!! some of you don't realise that a company can give you a compensation for the service it is providing not for the work you lost because of the service!! that it is up to you to make your own backup! For example your work is on internet; >> afford few euros of internet connection with another ISP the cheapest possible is enough.. when the main connection is down use the other one!

Joe Fenech

Jul 31st 2009, 18:50

Who cares about downloads?: we want a good service. Melita is a disgrace. Why are companies who lack the necessary equipment allowed to operate?

Robert Gatt

Jul 31st 2009, 17:19

Gimics apart (free downloads lol), let's concentrate on what Melita do have to offer. I've been a 2Mbit subscriber for a long time now, but have rarely managed to download at the expected rate. Now we've been upgraded to 5Mbit, however several speed tests (including local) show me to have 4.2-4.4Mbit ... why? Why not deliver what is promised?

T.gauci

Jul 30th 2009, 14:22

@C. Falzon

you have no idea of what you're talking about. Malta had dial up in the early days that's why it was too slow. DSL/cable are capable to handle high amount of traffic. explain how do i reach 50mbps with GO's 12mbps..now that's a speed

C Falzon

Jul 30th 2009, 13:05

@Silvio Abela
By 'beginning' I am not referring to that far back. I am referring to the time when 512k to 2Mbps ADSL was common but you would get nowhere near those speeds. The problem was simply that just 1000 people downloading at 2Mbps used up the entire international bandwidth available leaving the remaining 50,000 with a very slow connection. Numbers just off the top of my head, but you get the idea.
Since there was no download limit many people would just download continuously and then discard what they need/want rather than just downloading what they need. Many would even leave TV channels on continuously even when not at home consuming a lot of bandwidth for nothing. Download limits quickly put an end to such wasteful practices.

N. Zammit

Jul 30th 2009, 11:21

Melita is offering compensation in the form of unlimited downloads for this down time and the related inconvenience.........but what compensation is Melita offering business customers who already have unlimited downloads included in their tariff and who pay a heftier monthly fee for this much depended on service to run a business ?

Silvio Abela

Jul 30th 2009, 10:32

@ C. Falzon
"In the early days of internet here in Malta there were no download limits and that was the main cause of slow internet connections"

The simple reason of slow connections was the technology of the ISP's. It was a modem-to-modem connection before the advent of high speed internet. And when that came to Malta the bandwidth of the international connection was measured in very low Mbps.
Bandwidth is shared by many and it depends on the number of users in your same locality with the same ISP and everything counts in downloading even internet radio, the larger content on each webpage, downloading (legal content or not), online gaming etc.

David Schiavone

Jul 30th 2009, 00:12

Technically Speaking Melita won't be granting gold to its customers, on paper now they are no longer making use of Vodafone's Backbone.. so this is pepper spray from Melita to its customers. Moreover Melita should have said that a backhaul exists with Vodafone which I couldn't understand why they didn't contact Vodafone to activate it - in this case for emergency basis. Anyways..its always the same story different day, we got used to Melita - blaming others and shrugging off responsbility...and...well i will stop here.

Jeff Rogers

Jul 29th 2009, 22:39

I want compensation in monatery terms and not unlimited downloads, to me its useless i for one am not interested in downloading foreign films, music, i just use it for my work, and if i don't get at least some kind of a discount on my next bill. Melita to me will be just History. End of Story, and if people will follow suit, you guys at the top will be out on your necks digging holes.
Hasta La vista Baby.

M Fenech

Jul 29th 2009, 21:15

I was a melita customer in the past for many years. I stopped using melita simply because of their bad customer service. You need to tell them 5 times before something is done. Not to mention being transferred from department to deaprtment and after end up at the first department you contacted. Moreover they are not too forgiving if you didnt pay your bill simply becuase they sent it to the wrong address even after you gave them the right address and they said they would fix it.

Carmel Saliba

Jul 29th 2009, 20:23

The action taken by Melita to offer free downloads for a month after yesterdays' internet disruption attracted many people and the report was Most Read, Most Emailed and nearly Most Commented. Maybe reached the excessive invasion as the Presidents' official photo.

What is the real reason? Should the offer be a deduction of 50 cents? The real cause of disruption was an international one. On yesterdays' interruption Melita had no negligence. No more comments.

C Falzon

Jul 29th 2009, 17:55

Offering free unlimited download to everyone is quite the opposite of compensation. It is only beneficial to the people who download huge quantities of pirated films.
For all the rest it just means a slower internet conenction. The whole point of download limits is to ensure that the international links are not overloaded, which would down access for everyone. In the early days of internet here in Malta there were no download limits and that was the main cause of slow internet connections.

The international bandwidth is necessarily just a very small fraction of the sum of bandwidths of all the clients and the only way that it can suffice is by placing download limits or charging by volume (or some combination of both). In Malta (and in other small islands) this is much more of an issue than in larger countries since we can only have few interconenctions to the 'outside world'.

ISPs soon learnt from the mistake and placed limits so that the massive downloads of the few would not impact the far more numerous users who download more moderate amounts.

R Scicluna

Jul 29th 2009, 17:25

Why do all you poor melita customers insist?..... the only way is to do as I did and change to someone else.....at least you can get through to the customer service staff.....

Geir Nilsen

Jul 29th 2009, 16:32

I am fed up with Melita. Every time I have sent emails to them it takes at least five days to get a reply. I am refurbishing my house, need to move out for a few months, so need to relocate the Internet service. Tried to call them, but after being cut off four times, I gave up and wrote an email as usual. Nine days later and no reply. Today I am without internet in the new place I am renting for four months. Thankfully I have a GO HSDPA modem in case of outages and problems like these. It shouldn't be necessary though!

I also get lots of random calls from 27270000 which is one of their numbers. The calls are obviously automated, due to a fault. Have contacted them many times, and they say they will look into it. Half a year later I still get these annoying calls! Contacted Vodafone, but they said they couldn't block certain numbers. Only alternative is to go to the police.

Does anyone know how GO's latency is? Is it as good as Melita's? That is to me more important than theoretical download speed because of gaming.

So I want to

Kevin Curmi

Jul 29th 2009, 15:44

WOW what a compensation ! Unlimited download for a month when the basic is already 25 GB ??? And for those who already have unlimited download in their package ?????? Sorry they forgot YOU ! As always

D. Abdilla

Jul 29th 2009, 15:28

If you work out the compensation which Melita must give it's customers on the 5mbps Package, a shortage for 6 hours would mean that you lost only 11c.

25Gb is little in Todays Internet. Watch a 3min Full HD clip and you will easily download around 200mb.

Melita at least did offer something in return.

Martin Grima

Jul 29th 2009, 12:36

Free downloads! Three cheers for Melita, what?

Melita should give unlimited downloads as standard like the rest of Europe, where Internet access costs less anyway!

D Agius

Jul 29th 2009, 12:13

Can someone explain to me how I could be regularly and promptly informed of new developments "through its website and through electronic news portals" if I had no Internet connection whatsoever!!?? Not to speak about their customer care line which was a truly mission impossible task to get through!

John Vella

Jul 29th 2009, 11:21

Free downloads? You must be joking - the usual gimmick from Melita. with 25GB of free downloads already included in a basic subscription - that's more than enough - you would have to be a super user to go beyond 25GB a month! COME ON MELITA - ANOTHER GIMMICK. You'd better compensate the lost hours of work!

Bruno Spiteri

Jul 29th 2009, 09:03

Free downloads? So, I pay the monthly fee and you give me free downloads? What kind of chicky compensation is that? If you want to compensate customers give amoney back. Melita don play with your customers, people get smart and learn.

A Coppini

Jul 29th 2009, 08:43

Ironically (or maybe not), business customers -the ones which were most affected by this outage- already have unlimited downloads.

It's the low-end private customers -the ones that use internet for basic browsing and e-mail- who will benefit most out of this compensation.

As always in Malta, the more you pay, the less you get....

Mark Mangion

Jul 29th 2009, 08:43

@ C Briffa
You said ' ..... the dispute was because Melita had said that it would only help GO if the latter promised to then give it free access to its new cable'
THAT is a REDUNDANCY mutual agreement my friend...tit for tat....according to that article back in Dec 08 which nobody disputed.....Go wanted Melita to help them out but did not want to guarantee their help if the same happened to Melita...... qedin sew!

Anthony Farrugia

Jul 29th 2009, 08:25

To Melita in particular and all other service providers of all type. Why is it that that special offers and freebies are always directed to attracting new customers while no such offers are ever made to existing customers as loyalty awards. Could be that existing customers are reluctant to "vote" with their feet and move on to a competitor who offers better service ...........................

Vicki Azzopardi

Jul 29th 2009, 06:36

On a different note, can Melita please employ somebody to respond to the many e mails I sent and were unanswered. Also a FEW of its Customer Care Reps need better training as they are utterly hopeless, arrogant and only interested in selling their products and not listening to their customers request.

J.M.Buhagiar

Jul 29th 2009, 02:56

@ Michael Andrews
You said: To be honest the service is not bad. Yet you will be the first to leave. A Maltese Culture. Scrap it. Imma out of the frying pan into the fire!

Public or Private in Malta - beautifull web sites, free phones = Excellence.
Problem is, how easy is it to get through? = Effective.
Try seeking info from Local Councils. Have telephone operators been trained to save time and money. Can you scrap,swap that!

Core of the problem:
Quality-Management, Customer-Satisfaction, People & Processes!
A drive without a finish! We have not even started!
Call the University or MCAST. NON can provide Training! Believe me its 2010!

The UK lost major brand-names cause they never resolved quality issues including Mini, Rover and Jaguar. Meanwhile? Germany even managed to re-invent and turn-around Schoda, that no one wanted a few years ago!

We! Ahna Bravi like the British. We scraped Malta Ship Building and the Skilled Workers that built them.

QUALITY-MANAGEMENT is what we need. Management is failing!

Germany is the Benchmark.

John Dalli has the experience.

We are making too many mistakes.

I can only hope you understand.

Antoine Zammit

Jul 29th 2009, 00:49

Do something about the crappy customer care/ call centre please. Its not the staff..The staff there is great. its the annoying call answeing system, and pre recorded messages. Thanks.

Peter Lustig

Jul 29th 2009, 00:41

I called at 9.30 customer hotline and got immediate information about the problem after I choosed speaking to a customer assistant. This guy did it in english after I told him I'm not able to speak Maltese. So, after this call I went to a free WIFI point next to my home and worked from there. Not comfortable, but Shit happens.

J. Duca

Jul 28th 2009, 21:56

What is the MCA`s role towards Melita customers.
As regards to TV, Melita first discontinue screening Chelsea TV and MUTV, (two hugely followed channels) without any notice, then had the arrogance to increase the Sports package`s fee.
The only thing that is keeping Melita alive is the English Premiere League and the Serie A, once they loose these contracts, they will loose 75% of their deluded customers.

I C Moore

Jul 28th 2009, 21:44

The compensation offered should be in monetary terms. We pay in monetary terms so the refund should be in monetary terms. Does Melita have the financial resources to do it? I would like to hear from Stephen how many financial officers left Melita these last 12 months!!

D.Galea

Jul 28th 2009, 21:21

I have been a melita customer for ages (ONE OF THE FIRST MELITA CUSTOMER). Recently I made my objections because of the increase in the digital television service. I complained that while the number of station were reduced, the monthly payment was increased. The only reply I have received was that and I quote, "...it was a management decision". I also informed and asked MCA for their reaction but I just got no reply from them what so ever. Years ago customers had no where to put in their complains. Today we have various means but the customers/consumers still do not get any concrete remedy.

Joseph Vassallo

Jul 28th 2009, 21:01

Hands up all those who have had to supplement their monthly payments because they have exceeded the download quota. Nobody? Now there's a surprise.

This CEO should concentrate on attaining an acceptable level of service rather than take the Piddle by offering extra D/Ls. As a first step forward, how about giving some response (other than spam) when they receive a complaint.

So they blame "Wind" and their customers suffer the "bellyache". It's probably our own fault for not being savvy enough to find a proxy.

R Gatt

Jul 28th 2009, 20:54

Wasn't it melita who didn't help Go when they had them 2 faults some months ago? And didn't Vodafone help Go after an agreement they made after the 1st fault? Why is Melita always special ... As special as there terrible customer service?

What does FREE DOWNLOADS mean?!?!?! for 2Mbit I got 20G limit I think, which i've never come close to reaching (as have most customers), so were is my compensation exactly? Have I misunderstood or are Melita being their usual selves (no explanation needed there) ?

m.seager

Jul 28th 2009, 20:34

we have come along way in 14 years !!
I opened an internet cafe in 1996 and was asked by the planning authority (now mepa) what is internet ?
there are always failures with any type of system whether it be your car,fridge,atm machine or computer..etc etc.
maybe now that melita have set a president by giving its clients a token gesture of compensation others may follow in the same manner including the government.

in closing i must say that isp's are 1000 times faster and in general much more reliable than they were 14 years ago !

Anthony Magri

Jul 28th 2009, 20:16

Melita has a lot to answer. What does it mean one month free download.? A full month free subscription. If not why use double meanings. Nothing better than straight talking to be believed.
No small print will do.

alexander pace gouder

Jul 28th 2009, 20:13

Come on Melita. it is high time you arrange your customer service. At present it is hopeless. I have on various occassions tried to contact you on phone but left waiting hearing your adverts and music and then the line goes dead. Furthermore we have to pay extra to watch Sports and Film Channels. Also I love music channels and i only get MTV and TRACE. Also I am not interested in about 10 stations you offer why not give us the option to choose if we are paying. Also if you see the adverts on Mediaset you will notice that their charges for Sports and Film channels are cheaper then yours Melita Cable. and Wages in Italy are much higher then Malta's .

R. Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 20:05

http://www.mca.org.mt/infocentre/openarticle.asp?id=1267&pref=39

Legal Notice to ensure the continuity of Operation of international connectivity.

C Briffa

Jul 28th 2009, 19:46

@ C Farrugia

Well you seem to take everything that Melita says at face value + you seem to keep records of issues going back to last December. Now let me see, you are either an archivist, a historian or ... could it just be ... a Melita cheerleader?

According to you, GO and Voda are liars but Melita is saintly. Interesting stuff. As far as I recall the dispute was because Melita had said that it would only help GO if the latter promised to then give it free access to its new cable. Perhaps you could dig in your archive again and illuminate us further on this.

J Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 19:34

In this small country we have 3 providers of internet (as far as I know) who instead of being united to offer a good service especially to companies who rely on internet are fighting between each other. I hope that the Authorities are looking into this farce and I hope they impose that if one company has a problem customers can rely with immediate effect to another company.

albert grech

Jul 28th 2009, 19:31

Please refer cash discount on the monthly fee to those customers that do not download material

Michael Andrews

Jul 28th 2009, 19:29

I am not bothered about compensation and even if i was, what they are offering is no good to me seeing as i have extra large internet with unlimited downloads anyway.
I have read most of the posts here and i am reading what i have been saying for a long time..... Melita's customer service is diabolical and you could say non-existant.
I am waiting for these remaining 10 months to go by so i can happily write to inform them that i wish to cancel all 4 services with them that i currently have.
I currently pay €130 a month and have been with them for at least 8 years plus,but when i had one complaint with them i was completely ignored.
The arrogance of some of the staff i spoke to was unbelievable and if the company was mine,some decent training sessions would be taken by all staff members
To be honest, the service they have is not bad but the lack of respect towards their paying customers is unreal.
They will realise this come next February when hundreds ,if not thousands, of their customers defect to Vodafone and GO.
I shall be number one on that list.

john pullicino

Jul 28th 2009, 19:27

So now ,Melita is back . Simpler bettter and faster and they now promise a compensation however no detail yet . i was a melita mobile customer and left becuase they could not live up to the catch phrase . Melita threw the 18 month contract at me and told me i cannot leave . I complained to the consumer affairs and in a nuthshell the agreemnet that melita offer mobile subscibers is illegal. if you do notewant the service anymore you are not liable to pay any monthly rent going forward . The same applies to the contracts on your Melita internet contract you signed . Do not be fooled and shame on Melita who fool customers with a contract which is illegal. So if you get no service just disconnect , they do not have any legal right to stop anyone .

C Buttigieg

Jul 28th 2009, 19:25

The only way this would not happen again is if we lived in a perfect world and we all know how far from reality that is. Do you all honestly believe that these things do not happen abroad? Lighten up people, things will break down and stop working every now and again. If you read the report the fault was stemmed from WIND's side, which, just as a reminder is one of Italy's biggest service providers. When we complain about having contingency equipment we have to keep in mind that in Malta, due to size, the volume of customers is just not there, therefore all companies area weary of how much they invest as returns on investment might take years to recover. It is a lot easier to spend a million euros (hypothetically) when you have 5 million subscribers that when you have 20 thousand. If anyone has a reason to complain it is the buisnesses that suffer but I am sure that deep inside they know that even their own equipment has at one time or another failed.

Keith Aquilina

Jul 28th 2009, 19:20

From 9 am I tried to contact Melita and only at 11.30am , was I able to get a very short answer saying that there was an international problem. Till 3pm, I only managed to access Melita's website and I could not see any updates on their homepage.
I was bewildered reading this article 'cos it seems to be misinforming the public, my experience was so different.

Plus, what does exactly free downloads for a month mean ? At what bandwidth will this be available, will this be available 24/7? What should I be downloading extra in this month?
It would make more sense for customers if we are given a one month internet subscription free of charge.

Alex Ciantar

Jul 28th 2009, 19:18

Well done to Melita. Hopefully this is a glimpse at future customer service in Malta.

C Farrugia

Jul 28th 2009, 19:03

On Sunday December 21 2008, journalist Caroline Muscat had reported in The Sunday Times of Malta that Melita and GO are locked into a dispute on redundancy agreements. The report had also made reference to Vodafone being engaged in the same dispute. Melita's CEO was also quoted as saying that Melita had been trying to get to an agreement on redundancy for 6 months........and MCA had also commented within the report.

Therefore, how come both GO and Voda are now denying knowledge of the subject? How come have they both mentioned the same date - June 15th? If Melita had been waiting for 6 months in December, then now they have been waiting 13 months!

It really seems to me that GO and Voda are delaying the agreement with Melita and MCA is simply not doing enough to resolve the situation, despite having full powers to do so.

It is in the public interest to have peace of mind on internet services.

Jason Zammit

Jul 28th 2009, 18:53

Hold on a second!

"Melita plc said this afternoon that it was offering its customers unlimited internet downloads free of charge for a month as compensation."

Do you take me for a fool? We ALREADY have Unlimited downloads by default since we are on the 20Mb connection. What am I or other clients of this package going to receive as compensation?

michael tanti

Jul 28th 2009, 18:53

hahaaaaaaaaa....u min ma jamilx dowloads ????? halluna melita !

Anthony Magri

Jul 28th 2009, 18:34

Melita said that throughout the day it issued information updates to its customers through its website(sic) and through electronic news portals.
How strange! since there was no internet connection! Or Melita performed miracles
Mind you, I am just a driver, not a technical person.

ray gauci

Jul 28th 2009, 18:30

its very nice for melita to offer us Free downloads for a month.....just for the record melita offer their packages from (M) 25GB download limit to (L) 80GB download limit to unlimited those who are on (XL)
.....now I am e heavy user of the internet and I barely hit the 15GB a month and I am on (L)
......is this a gimmick??? or what do you think?

Harry Baldacchino

Jul 28th 2009, 18:21

15th June....isn't that 6 weeks ago?

Matthew Bonnici

Jul 28th 2009, 18:19

This has turned into one huge advertising campaign if you ask me....

Mark Cristiano

Jul 28th 2009, 18:15

Article states: "Melita said that throughout the day it issued information updates to its customers through its website and through electronic news portals." Can i ask a stupid question or I haven't understood the problem.. if clients didnt have internet, how could they access the website for updates?????

Mario Pace

Jul 28th 2009, 18:10

Well Melita customers can simply GO with the best ISP and their problems will be solved.

Alison Garbett

Jul 28th 2009, 18:10

I rang Melita at around 12.15pm this afternoon and I was given an explanation and was told it would be reconnected within an hour, they did not reconnect within the hour but I was told what the problem was.

R Grech

Jul 28th 2009, 18:05

Free downloands??? How come since the service charge paid monthly gives access to that. I wonder why these are being announced now. It was better to arrange your inefficient and incompetent customer care service at the first instance. It was better to say the truth to customers rather than announcing that you were doubling the internet speed and then you discover it was the other way round ... more slow.

gaffarena joseph

Jul 28th 2009, 18:04

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM hope this is not a usual gimmick coming from melita.
Why not having the same monthly fee as in european countries.
Why we have to pay all that money to see the English premier league?
Come on,do something good for your local subscribers.

L.Navarro

Jul 28th 2009, 18:03

Thank you Melita! At least someone on this Island is finally listening to the public!!! As they say it's the the thought that counts!!

Sergio Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 18:02

@ Mark Grech , well i never complained about their service , last month they doubled my speed for free !
ANYONE COMPLAINED ABOUT THAT ? OR ARE WE A NATION THAT NAGS ABOUT EVERYTHING !

Andrew West

Jul 28th 2009, 18:02

Is it just a coincidence? After the service was restored around 3pm I found that my connection went up from 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps.

L. Brincat

Jul 28th 2009, 17:50

Which of the following case is true?:

Case 1:
I will pay the next month's subscription and if I reach the dowload limit threshold I can continue to download without any disruption.

Case 2:
Next month's subscription will be free.

J. Muscat

Jul 28th 2009, 17:49

uhuuu I just got home and I have internet.. I am getting compensation even though I did not have any downtime :)

Finally MCA is checking into what is happening when these downtimes occur but I wonder why they do not look into each and every anomaly which happen from time to time and keep us all updated by issuing a public statement. Probably its because a lot of people were effected today...

hopefully this will not happen again... hopefully Go and Melita will sit down and make this redundancy plan or whatever it is. For the sake of everyone involved especially us customers some compromises need to be taken...

we have loads of moaning Myrtles in this country!

Mr.Mark Winter

Jul 28th 2009, 17:45

Sorry Mr.Wright i don't quite get what you are trying to say.. FREE DOWNLOADS FOR A MONTH! RIGHT? does that mean 1 month's free of charge or deducted from the bill. In my case as i pay every 6 months do i get a refund for 30 days or so? please expand or elaborate a bit more, becaue we pay for downlaods in any case, so what other downlaods are there?. Thanks,sorry to be naive but after all i lost a day's work through the breakdown with my overseas partners. PS. I am not Maltese Mark Winter.

M. Cachia

Jul 28th 2009, 17:38

GO has one new cable ... the other cable is falling to bits and will soon be (if not already) non-functional as it's been in service for over 20 years and needed to be replaced by the new one. So GO should give the full picture to its customers ...and prospective ones too.

If GO are so well equipped to offer premium connectivity, why aren't they upgrading all their INternet customers like Melita did??

Re redundancy I am smelling a rat here ... I think GO should have remained silent on redundancy because when their customers spent a whole day without internet, then a few months later over 36 hours without Internet I cannot recall that they had any redundancy in place.

I stand to be corrected. Mr Kay is the above right?

Wayne Hewitt

Jul 28th 2009, 17:25

Free downloads? And you call this compensation?? LOL

christina chircop

Jul 28th 2009, 17:22

That is pretty decent of Melita. I was the first one to start swearing this morning when I couldn't use email but this puts a whole different tone to the situation. I take my hat off to you for putting your money where your mouth is.

Mark Grech

Jul 28th 2009, 17:15

Wow have pigs just started to fly? Melita offering compensation..... now that's a real first!!!

Mark Vella

Jul 28th 2009, 17:14

THIS IS FRESH OF MELITA'S SITE!!

As compensation to our customers we are offering unlimited internet downloads free of charge for one whole month" added Mr. Wright. This is the first time that a local communications provider is offering compensation for a technical outage. "We also assure our customers that we are working closely with the MCA to ensure this situation will be avoided in the future. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in resolving today's issues in the least time possible."

jane deguara nee hughes

Jul 28th 2009, 17:05

i have 3 pc in my house, and work from home i hope we will get compensation, i have lost a lot of money, and wasted a lot of time. so come on melita i have been with you since 1997 i have 2 internet conection phone and mobile....

Andrew Gatt

Jul 28th 2009, 17:05

@ Mario Meilaq............I stand by my comment 100%. We had NO INTERNET till 3.00pm today. It took me HOURS just to speak to someone at Melita. And NO ADVICE was given. Melita employees either did not have the information or were instructed to be non-committal to customers. What "continuous information" are you talking about? Were you in Malta or Pluto today???

I repeat, when it comes to customer care, Melita is the absolute PITS.

tabone c

Jul 28th 2009, 17:05

We are reading about compensations. Are Enemalta giving any for the last national black out and other small power cuts which we experience from time to time?

Tony Abela

Jul 28th 2009, 17:03

Yes it is frustarting to say the least when you loose the Internet connection, but technical faults do happen. It appears that most of the bloggers are non-technical, as they are referring to a second line when Melita stated that it was a SOFTWARE PROBLEM with the connectivity to WIND. They also mentioned CISCO, which for those who do not know are one of the world leaders in Digital Transmission Routers and Backbone equipment

The fault could have happened to any ISP, but some compensation jest by Melita should be shown to prove that it does care about its customers.

Also with a software fault which needs the coordination of international stakeholders, 6 hours downtime, which is 0.068% of the whole year, is not bad. Let us look on the positive side of life!

Paul Cordina

Jul 28th 2009, 16:59

Melita Listen Again: I am not interested in compensation. I am interested in uninterrupted and fast internet supply and a telephone service that does not depend on EneMalta. Please invest in that direction...only then more customers will flow. (Not to mention the high amount of 'repeats' on Cable!!!)

christopher conti

Jul 28th 2009, 16:57

I have internet mobile fixed line and Tv , it is normal to lose some of the services provided some days of the year and we always get some sort of exscuse will that mean that for every time we get some disconnect we will be given some sort of compensation , is it just this once as some bigwick lost his business and Melita may lose them as customers . why complain either remain as a customer satisfied or not or leave the small fry at least

Melita note the ball is in your court will it remain

Ramis Micallef

Jul 28th 2009, 16:53

@C Anastasi
If Joseph Cachia Caruana sounds like an employee, you sound like their competitor ;)

fiona ellul

Jul 28th 2009, 16:44

Seems to me everyone needs to calm down a bit here! The realities of the situation are that yes, we were all pissed off bigtime at Melita because we all pay for the service and we can't do without it. Now the service is restored AND Melita is offering compensation. End of story. I have only one question - give me more details about this compensation, Melita!

C Galea

Jul 28th 2009, 16:44

Way to go Melita!

GO and Enemalta, wake up and start giving customer service: disruption of services means client must be compensated.

Paul Barrett

Jul 28th 2009, 16:42

@ Brian Maloret
Reference your comment this morning regarding Melita compensation and "pigs will fly"

Looks like its the year of swine flu LOL

A. Mifsud

Jul 28th 2009, 16:37

Shame! Shame! Shame!
3 hours trying to get through melita's customer service, but to no avail. Not that on other occasions it's easy to get through to customer care, mind you. The result : Business at a standstill and having to face hundreds (for others it might be thousands) of euros in losses. Then comes the day when we miss a payment by a few days and have the service promtly suspended.

Dodgy service by a greedy & arrogant ISP .

A Burlo

Jul 28th 2009, 16:37

JCC says Melita is a leading service provde !! I think you must be with those astronauts in space that just overflew Malta on the shuttle . What is leading about Melita their customer service? Their speed ? P2P bandwith/? try and make a speed check on www.speedtest.net or with http://www.nethealth.net.mt/index.php at peak times. Never exceeded 7Mb as opposed to the 10Mb they boast about. YOU MUST BE IN SPACE. I shall be making the move to Go

Antoine Salafia

Jul 28th 2009, 16:32

To my knowledge, oligopolies work in the EU only while they're kept secret. The three major providers have an opportunity to teach our political parties how to keep the dosh coming in AND keep us sheep happy by actually stuffing the rhetoric when there's an obviously serious problem. If Malta's accident-prone Internet services don't change soon someone's eventually going to complain to the right person in Brussels and a couple of suits with magnifying glasses (and a bill in their pocket) are going to show up and break up the gig. Perhaps it time the MCA taught Melita, GO and Vodafone how to pander to the public, and gave the three headed monster a shake. Force the three of them to set up a non-profit company providing a basic back-up service for situations like today's. If they work it out right, customers will be happier, the extra Go staff will have a job, a minister will have a photo shoot, TVM will have content, The Times an editorial... everyone will smell like roses, and we can get back to our comfortable island rhetoric.

C Anastasi

Jul 28th 2009, 16:21

@ Joseph Cachia Caruana

You sound like an employee!

If you are going to boast you are the best then prove it, Melita is not the best, they don't even have a second link to the main land unlike other providers. Their Mobile coverage is questionable and their TV rates went up too.

Lets not even mention the customer service.

Melita were not the first company to offer all 4 services, leading company .....I beg to differ!

Robert Zammit

Jul 28th 2009, 16:18

THIS TIME THEY ARE AT LEAST APOLOGIZING !!!! Of course we expect to be compensated , it's normal in a normal country !! I hope not only for today but even for last week when in Lija we were without Internet and Cable TV for around 8/12 hours also when we were told that there was trouble with enemalta sub station or something to that nature !! I hope they will also compensate us for that too ! I'm not bothered who's fault it was enemalta or melita, all I know is that i had not internet and no TV !!!

Joseph Cachia Caruana

Jul 28th 2009, 16:17

As John Carabott said you should blame yourself not Melita because if you lost all that money why can't you install another backup connection?

If Mater Dei loses power automatically turns on generators and not leave negative comments on a site and blame Enemalta for the inconvenience.

m attard

Jul 28th 2009, 16:14

@ Mario Meilaq

Please do not assume that just because you had limited connectivity, everyone did. I had no connectivity at all, for a full 6 hours, except for 2 minutes when I managed to download 4 emails. My internet wouldn't even open, and I must have tried every 10 minutes.

You too have made a cardinal mistake by ASSUMING.......

C Briffa

Jul 28th 2009, 16:11

Funny stuff this. Not long ago we were Melita customers in our household and whenever we needed to contact their call centre, we would wait for eternity on the line. Yet these 'customers' appear to experience a fantastic response time and service. Maybe they have a special customer care telephone number in hand they might want to share?

Melita Elves, anyone?

fbonello

Jul 28th 2009, 16:09

I had my Melita internet service disconnected due to an unfortunate incident by my neighbour last Tuesday 21 July 2009 ONLY to be reconnected properly yesterday. In the meantime I was left without internet service, and to day I had this suspension of service. How much will my compensation be? Melita please note !!!!!

Lorraine Vella

Jul 28th 2009, 16:08

great! melita is giving me refund... but a pro-rata refund? or one which makes good for the money i lost from my business today? i wait to be enlightened.

Jurgen Agius

Jul 28th 2009, 16:05

with all respect to you all .. if you are all shouting of backups and melista should have run the backup etc etc.. you business man and etc are saying because you lost money due to melita? possible you don't afford a misery of Lm5 (maximum 15euros) of another internet service with another company? more and more if you depend on internet i should give the blame for the work lost to you not to the ISP! ;)

Colin Camilleri

Jul 28th 2009, 16:05

and then we want to attract foreign investment!! my foot. micky mouse country!! everything costs 3 times as much as other EU countries and half as good.
indeed, local companies should think about relocating their offices to sicily and not the other way round.
to add insult to injury, we seldom get compensations for the lost time and business. we are and still be, for many years to come, light years behind the rest of europe.

Joseph Cachia Caruana

Jul 28th 2009, 16:02

If you are saying Melita to have a backup why don't you make a backup even a Dial Up backup will be good to send e-mails. Everyone can have problems so don't send negative comments every time Melita have a minor problem.

If you read those negative comments you think that Melita is the worst ISP on the island but as all of you know Melita is one of the leading company that offers all the four services.

Rachel Attard

Jul 28th 2009, 16:02

Melita should also compensate those prepaid mobile subscribers who tried the mobile phone from Spain last June. Emails with complaints sent to Melita are not acknowledged.

Mario Attard

Jul 28th 2009, 15:57

@D. Vella

I totally agree with your points.

Mario Meilaq

Jul 28th 2009, 15:54

@ Andrew Gatt

I'm also on Melita and I had access to timesofmalta.com and other local sites continuously as the fault didn't affect that. Maybe you should not have jumped to assume that the Melita rep you spoke to was giving you bad advice. You should have done like I did - take her advice and I knew minute by minute what was happening and what had caused the fault.

It seems like for some people nothing is ever good & everything is reason to complain. I have to thank both The Times and Melita for working together to keep the public updated. The continuous information lessened my frustration considerably.

Kevin Carbonaro

Jul 28th 2009, 15:52

I have a personal website hosted with a foreign provider and when the service was down for one hour I was compensated for an extra day of service even though according to their terms and conditions I was not qualified for it.

The result is that I am still a happy customer of theirs.

Will Melita do similar stuff? Would be surprised if they do!
On a good note though, after I got through to customer service, they did explain what was wrong without hesitation.

Stephen Sammut Nurminen

Jul 28th 2009, 15:51

If subscribers are a day late with their payment, they get disconnected.
However, when a fault occurs from the providers side (very often), no compensation is given.
What is up with this country lately? - powercuts, roads which are worse off than they were when we were using donkeys, illegal projects getting the go ahead....

''3rd World Country''

L. Navarro

Jul 28th 2009, 15:48

@ Jurgen Agius
For us that need our internet for our business it costs us Euros not cents!!! That's what the compensation is about! I'll leave the cents for your piggy bank!! So maybe you have something better to do! Start counting your own cents!!!

C Briffa

Jul 28th 2009, 15:47

The biggest, the cheapest, the best .... and then they only invested in one cable, which has already failed after a few weeks .... and now they want others who invested in 2 cables to give them access for free. If I recall correctly in December they refused GO's call for help as they claimed it would affect Melita's customers.

Now that they are in GO's predicament they want GO to affect it's customers to help them. They even blame their technical problems on GO and Vodafone. Well, what goes around comes around. I don't want my GO service affected to help Melita, thank you very much.

Melita should be happy that Vodafone and GO are not gloating all over the place at its problems, unlike what it did in December.

The best indeed.

Wayne Hewitt

Jul 28th 2009, 15:42

@ Ben Brown

Or have THE office in another country altogether!

Wayne Hewitt

Jul 28th 2009, 15:38

What about compensation? Only in Malta...

D Vella

Jul 28th 2009, 15:34

Apart from those shouting(rightly) for compensation,I wish those irritating advertisments when holding on for someone to eventually speak to you would stop. I have a feeling we are kept waiting on purpose in the hope we might swallow the bait and buy another service from Melita.Either that ,or they need to employ more staff.

Whichever,I don't appreciate hanging on to the other end of a phone for anything up to half an hour each time I need to phone. I have often considered changing my supplier for this reason alone, and if human response time does not improve I definitely will.


Listening Joe?

Andrew Gatt

Jul 28th 2009, 15:32

Melita, your Customer Service Department is AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE.

My business was down for 6 hours today. We spent literally hours dialling this number and that - no reply, the line cuts on its own, recorded messages galore and finally, when we managed to speak to a human being we invariably were given vague and contradictory information. To cap it all, the last person I spoke to (before giving up in disgust) told me I could get update information from timesofmalta.com. DUHHHHH? HELLLOOOO? HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT???

Pray you never need Melita when there is a big problem with connectivity. Because we, the customers, are treated like mushrooms.......kept in the dark and fed crap.

Jurgen Agius

Jul 28th 2009, 15:32

@l.Navarro your compensation if you calculate it will be not more than 50c (euro) imagine if on a home account you have 15euro internet per month divide it by 30 days for one day that will be 50 cents per 24hours... imagine for 6 hours how much it will cost you! many people talk talk talk talk and talk ..

And also i agree with mr. John Cachia when an enemalta have a problem of electricity do you each one of you call for a compensation? you dont have any appliance working neither your computer and that means no work to be done.. did you call for a compensation??

I dont know why many of you are making a big deal with this (home users not business)
i worked with many isp's and problems do happen and sometimes even the backup does not work think about what you say before blaming and giving bad name to a company :) melita is one of the best companies in malta! in line with go & voda...

Owen Caruana

Jul 28th 2009, 15:30

This is another example of Melita failing to keep their promises, Can't wait till these 15 months pass by, as many of their subscribers would vanish and never to be seen again. I am one of those people, Internet service is always playing around (called them many times with only one response, "we're restarting your modem")

Mobile services ? please let's not go there... No service in many areas, and a nightmare when on travel. Don't want to mention any problems I had ( and still do) but I'm not talking for my own, many people say the same things, so NO you're not the best IMO.

Those "cheap" rates tempted and caught many people in your net, and now everyone will say the same phrase " Once bitten, NEVER AGAIN"

Norbert Vella

Jul 28th 2009, 15:29

@ Lincoln Grixti

And unfortunately Melita at that time refused to do so. In fact in December go agreed with Vodafone. Today there is an agreement between Go and Vodafone, that if something happen to one of them they will service each other.

annalisa grech

Jul 28th 2009, 15:25

Hey all internet is fully restored!!

m attard

Jul 28th 2009, 15:25

You should be ASHAMED, Melita, for the problems this morning.... not the problem you had with connectivity - problems occur everywhere and that is understandable, especially with today's technology. However, couldn't you at least provide some information for companies and individuals alike? How about radio/television announcements or sms alerts? Keeping an office open for 6 hours with 0 productivity can kill a business nowadays. Your customer service is a sham. When I finally got through (at 1.30pm, having been trying since 9.10am), I was told that I could access www.timesofmalta.com to remain updated on the problem.... Ahhhhhh, the intelligence of some employees................

Some time to sort out another ISP and telephone provider, and GOODBYE to you all.

SHAME - SHAME - SHAME

Charles Attard

Jul 28th 2009, 15:21

When GO subs experienced down-time some time ago in view of their underwater cable being damaged by ship anchors, Melita issued PR notices boasting their own internet services were unaffected. Melita back then used both Vodafone and GO international links to mitigate such failures. Since then GO invested in a 2nd link for backup, while Melita moved to its own single international link to do away with the previous operators. Guess what... that single link now failed and Melita is crying foul with the MCA for not having access to the other's reslient infrastructure. How's that for the best broadband provider on the island!?

Ben Brown

Jul 28th 2009, 15:20

Total and utter shambles. How i am supposed to run a company like this. First power now internet. The only true back up is to have a 2nd office in a different country.

Lincoln Grixti

Jul 28th 2009, 15:16

"Unfortunately Melita’s proposals for redundancy agreements presented to both GO and Vodafone earlier this year were delayed by both operators," it added.

GO is the same company that asked Melita to lower the quality of it's client's internet services so that it could supply a basic internet connectivity to it's users. Hardware problems do happen and I don't see how anyone can have a backup for everything, especially if the backup depends on other companies, the issue is how long it takes to resolve the issue and to keep the client's informed of what is happening.

With regards to compensation, although I would love to get one myself, I do not expect to get one. A 100% uptime service can never be guaranteed, and this has happened locally multiple times before for longer periods of time and no compensation at all was mentioned. I do not even remember getting any email with an apology let alone a discount.

L.Navarro

Jul 28th 2009, 15:08

Internet is back! 3pm! .......... 9am till 3pm.......6 hours of service to be paid for???.......In my case times 2! Home and business! Adding up to 12 hours...............................

Joseph Cachia Caruana

Jul 28th 2009, 15:06

You want compensation for what? For just 5 hours out of service? If you calculate compensation of 5 hours all you get is just few cents.

Also, have you forgot the Enemalta issue that we had a month ago? The problem was all day long not for just 5 hours. Have you phoned them for compensation?

All the times that I phoned at Melita I got true (even if sometimes I had to wait) and my problem got tackled professionally even though the problem was from my PC and told them that it's a problem from their side and told them that I want to disconnect the service just because I was a bit angry because I needed internet in a hurry.

Tonio Chetcuti

Jul 28th 2009, 14:14

At least we now have the piece of mind of knowing that Melita are in partnership with 2 international giants like Cisco and Wind to solve the issue. This disruption is unfortunate and a problem for those of us stuck without internet but judging by the continuous updates I'm seeing here Melita are doing all that is humanely possible to keep their customers informed. Knowing that they're doing everything to give us back the service helps soften the blow of an internet-less morning. As long as they handle this in the right way, and it seems to me that they are, it seems petty to me to hound them, especially in view of the amount of money and investments they have thrown into the service.

Louis Aquilina

Jul 28th 2009, 14:01

The slow speed mentioned in your report has been apparent for some days now if not weeks.

Pity they didn't make an announcement some time ago. At least we would have known that the fault doesn't lie with our computer.

A. Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 13:46

@A. Tabone
I can access Times of Malta site since it is based on the local Melita network. From Melita you cannot access anything that is not connected to the Melita network. You cannot access GO or Vodafone IP addresses let alone foreign. The DNS service is also down. This morning I had to switch restart the Melita modem and my router just to get local access. This is still not enough though as email cannot be accessed and like some of you we are dependent on the internet for work.

I am not pointing fingers, faults occur BUT no backup plan? This is not correct for us customers. I am speaking for all of us here that we are demanding that this cut in service has to be reflected on our bills.

fiona ellul

Jul 28th 2009, 13:20

@ Brian Maloret - I think one should compare like with like here. None of the local providers have the kind of backup plan you mention. Go went through a similar situation only last december I believe and there was no backup plan either. These companies should be looking at the possibility of collaborating together in such emergencies maybe?

Mark Gatt

Jul 28th 2009, 12:58

Malta is not that stupid and charitable you know...there are a few good reasons why Melita has the largest number of internet subscribers on the island...as far as I know they haven't been going around at gunpoint.

Brian Maloret

Jul 28th 2009, 12:56

Mario axiaq

Yes, technology can and does fail but most major international companies have immediate back-up service. I have received internet services from a number of different service providers in various EU states and have never experienced this problem before.

Carlos Bonanno

Jul 28th 2009, 12:54

Having to make do without internet this morning is extremely frustrating but in all fairness I have to add that I got through to Melita with no problems and my enquiries were answered politely and efficiently. I'm sure they're trying to sort the situation as fast as they can as I can hardly think they'd want it otherwise.

Joe Sammut

Jul 28th 2009, 12:45

Incredible in this country. 5 Hours without Internet. Also trying to contact Melita on 2727 0000 and no response. Disgrace service Melita.

Ernest Vella

Jul 28th 2009, 12:43

Paul Cordina - I heared there is a problem with ISP's - the mass escape will not make a better service - the problem we are connected with only few cables and if something goes wrong we are found with this problem.

M. Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 12:23

i need to see my emails...hurry up melita please...

L. Navarro

Jul 28th 2009, 12:12

I have internet service both at home and at my business. I need my internet connection at work as my business is based on it. So I am paying for 2 internet connections at the moment which I do not have!!

Paul Barrett

Jul 28th 2009, 12:10

From 9am until now (1200) I could not even get a local connection.
Thankfully I finally got through on the telephone to Melita and after 25 minutes of technical fiddling, they managed to at least get me on line locally.
The service is generally good and even with all the back-ups in the world, things can still go wrong.
I do wish however that Melita had a separate telephone number for Internet faults rather than have to go through various push this number, push that number etc and then listen to advertisements (I think they were advertisements) before getting to some really awful music LOL.

Joaquim Silverio

Jul 28th 2009, 12:10

Businesses of all kinds, home based, are down. Co-locations, down! Melita provides service to half the country, haven't they been advertising that they are the best, even the biggest? Failing to have a backup in place shows incompetence. Why does a company investing millions in growth, expansion, advertising and prestige, leave unqualified people to run their investment? Malta suffers, business suffers, and I doubt there is a CTO in Melita right now who is saying he made a mistake at any point leading up to this. I see it as an arrogance, a Melita arrogance, a company willing to advertise they are the best, while gambling that the day never comes where it must be proven... unfortunately today they've been caught out, pants down. I would love to see the finger pointing this morning in the Melita office. Must be magical. What a mistake to trust them with my mobile service as well. Vodafone, I'm sorry, I am coming back to you this week. I shouldn't have left. Whatever Melita comes back with after this, it will not do. This is unacceptable. MCA take action!!

Mario axiaq

Jul 28th 2009, 12:00

All local internet companies have gone through similar faults in the past few months. Completely useless shooting off our mouths - technology CAN fail and WILL fail on occasion.

Paul Cordina

Jul 28th 2009, 11:53

I am sure there will be no rebates and personally I do not want this. All i want is a regular uninterrupted service! Maybe we should all change service en masse then Melita will definitely listen to us regular subscribers!!

J. Esposito

Jul 28th 2009, 11:40

That's what I need during this slow business period, more down-time. Wasted half a day's work, and counting...

abigail camilleri

Jul 28th 2009, 11:36

who is going to reimburse the companies who have lost a days work as a result of this technical fault??!!

does the consumers association come into play when these faults occur?

Gerald Fenech

Jul 28th 2009, 11:30

Welcome to Smart Malta!

A. Tabone

Jul 28th 2009, 11:29

@ A. Azzopardi
Emergencies do happen. It's stupid and childish to point fingers when there is a technical fault. And slow service is much better than no service at all. Seems to me like A. Azzopardi does have a level of service otherwise s/he wouldn't be blogging here.

Jay Spearing

Jul 28th 2009, 11:28

It seems like there's always something to nag about and complain in this country! Just give the lads some time to resolve the issue! These things happen everywhere.

M. Cachia

Jul 28th 2009, 11:25

Although I am disappointed due to the limited service being offered it's also helping me realise how much I rely on the Internet! I do hope that this problem is resolved soon.

To be honest I still think that I am getting a better deal (both financially and speed-wise) on my entry level Internet package with Melita.

I Alamango

Jul 28th 2009, 11:23

If compensation is not given to Melita subscibers, I put all the blame on MCA! As an authority they have to pressure the company to give a compensation. Melita will have all their costs refunded by their insurers but we as a clients are not covered!

MCA must fight for our rights

Hope the services resumes asap.

Brian Maloret

Jul 28th 2009, 11:21

Melita reduce bills or offer compensation!; pigs might fly first.

A. Azzopardi

Jul 28th 2009, 10:58

People work over the internet but I cannot imagine people having two kinds of internet connection from 2 companies just to have a backup for these kind of eventualities.

Before Melita had the new international cable, they used the one from Vodafone. Why don't they switch to that one for now? We want the service even if a bit slow until repair but we need the service!

@Liz Navarro
I would assume that the bill would be reduced due to this cut but this is Malta and human/customer rights are ignored.

J Axiaq

Jul 28th 2009, 10:54

Yeah we want a compensation!! At least 50% off from next month's bill. I cannot do my home based business because of this problem.

Liz Navarro

Jul 28th 2009, 10:47

Do subscribers ever get any compensation for these faults???