Maltese consumers spent approximately 74.9 million minutes or 52,000 days talking on their mobile phones last year, the Malta Communications Authority said.In a statement issued on the occasion of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, the Malta Communications Authority said 65 per cent of the population used the Internet – 96 per cent of youths and children regularly accessed the Internet from home.

Today, 51 per cent of internet users purchased online whilst 85 per cent of youths and children were registered to social networking sites.

The MCA set that last year, it set up 144 free Wi-Fi spots serving all towns and villages in Malta and Gozo, increasing accessibility to internet connection and at the same time, exploiting the use of mobile technologies. Approximately 200,000 users made use of this free service.

The authority pointed out that the national ICT Strategy clearly highlighted the importance of nationwide access to broadband connectivity at affordable prices, coupled with the development and uptake of next-generation high-speed broadband infrastructures.

The availability of access to broadband in Malta could be deemed superior to the European average.

According to latest EU statistics, Malta faired among the forerunners in the EU in terms of percentage of households using a broadband connection and the percentage of enterprises with fixed broadband access.

Malta also ranked well in terms of broadband speeds. As at July 2010, 88.5 per cent of all connections enjoying a speed of 2 Mbps or more, but less than 10 Mbps, well surpassing the EU average of 57.5 per cent of connections under this category.

As at the end of December 2010, the subscribers enjoying a connection speed of 4 Mbps or more had reached to 98.5%.