Internet broadband in Malta: An issue of quality or quantity?

Malta has placed 40th out of 66 countries in the second annual global study on the quality of internet broadband connections released a couple of weeks ago. Malta was put in the category of countries whose fast internet infrastructure is not catering adequately for the applications of today, let alone for the needs of the future.

Yet, Malta got the 11th spot in the broadband penetration table in terms of take-up, 11th in relation to its economic development and just 4th from the end in the table of the listing according to the digital broadband divide.

This means Malta is ahead in terms of use but not in terms of quality.

The most advanced countries are Japan, Sweden, Korea, the Netherlands, and Latvia. The United States is 16th and the United Kingdom is just 31st.

The Broadband Quality Study was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, and was sponsored by Cisco.

Compared to the first edition Malta has not improved much its position. Last year its placed 36th out of 42 countries, and its infrastructure was also labelled as not even adequate to meet the current needs. The new countries covered in this study are developing countries in Africa and Asia.

The Broadband Quality Score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each category according to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future. Typical applications for today include web browsing, social networking, music downloads, basic video streaming and video chatting, standard definition IPTV, and enterprise-class home offices. Future applications include consumer telepresence for communications, healthcare and education, high-quality video file sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV, cinema-quality live event broadcasts and advanced home automation.

The results of this survey have led to contrasting interpretation by Maltese interested parties.

"Malta's achievements in the field of ICT have yet again been acknowledged," the Ministry for Information Technology, Transport and Communication quickly commented after the publication of the results. In its press release the ministry selected some of the results and but did refer to the study saying Malta's infrastructure is below today's application threshold.

On the other hand, Maltese internet service providers (ISP) think the study reflects the truth of the situation.

"The study reaffirms what has been stated all along by ISPs ever since 1995," according to Aldo Calleja, chairman of the Electronic Communications Business Section at the Malta Chamber of Commerce Enterprise and Industry.

"The report clearly shows that Malta is closer to the bottom of the list with regards to quality internet connections. This is the result of a completely incorrect and erroneous liberalisation process of the sector, which is again something ISPs have warned government of ever since 1995."

Mr Calleja told i-Tech that the report only considers internet speed in upload and download for its measure of quality, which is only part of the experience. Clear billing, connection repairs, modem replacements, and e-mail assistance for example are a lengthy process in Malta and some users may even spend days without a functioning internet service due to a malfunctioning line. This is far from a quality customer experience, yet it is not factored in the report.

Secondly, the report takes national averages which in larger countries are a mix between cities that typically have higher speed broadband and less densely populated areas which have slower connections. If one wants to make a fair comparison, one must compare fast connections with fast connections only, since Malta is effectively a densely populated "city".

"Taking the above factors into account, the quality of service aspect of broadband in Malta is actually much worse than depicted in the report," claimed the representative of Maltese ISPs.

The Malta Communications Authority was not at all surprised with the results of the survey.

"The MCA anticipated the results, particularly when considering that efforts were primarily aimed at increasing broadband penetration," an authority spokesman told i-Tech. "In this regard, the results of the survey speak for themselves. Ranking 11th overall in terms of penetration and second behind Cyprus in the largest improvement overall is no mean feat. This is of a significant improvement from last year's 25th place, anchoring the country amongst those with innovation economies."

The MCA said it is aware of the fact that there is space for improvement in terms of quality, though there has been an improvement over last year which is reflected in the survey results.

"It is recognised that further action is required in the area of quality and in fact the MCA is currently in the process of establishing the parameters and methodology that will be used to measure the quality of local broadband service with a view to undertaking regular surveys of the services on offer," the spokesman revealed.

The authority pointed out that according to its own recent research over 88 per cent of the subscribers are satisfied with their broadband connections. Despite such a positive result, the MCA acknowledges that more can be done.

One unsatisfied customer, and a big one for that matter, is an online sports betting operator. Speaking to The Sunday Times two weeks ago, Betfair International managing director Niall Wass gave a bad certificate.

"The technology infrastructure in Malta is not as good as in mainland Europe," Mr Wass said. "Our network has gone down once a week for the last 10 weeks. We are disappointing our customers. The infrastructure is 10 times more expensive than the equivalent in mainland Europe."

To realise the scale of Betfair's dependency on internet, one has to keep in mind that the company has invested more than £100 million in its underlying technology that handles 6.4 million transactions a day through its Oracle database, the second largest database in the world.

Mr Calleja, himself the director of an ISP that serves large commercial companies, hopes the situation will change for the better.

"Since 15 years of informing/warning government and the authorities have pretty much got us nowhere, we can only hope that now that a Cisco-sponsored report is reaffirming this, matters will start to improve. Let us pray it will take less than a further 15 years."

Internet users can check the quality of their internet connection through the website.