Telecoms group Go is to sign up its 500th roaming partner, enabling its customers to enjoy service in more than 200 countries and territories.

Customer requirements and smartphone capabilities are making increasing demands of service providers which imply a series of prerequisites on the choice of roaming partners. Voice and text messages are taken for granted and categorised as a bare necessity of mobile usage. The challenge for providers is data.

Most of Go’s 500 roaming partners are able to offer data service levels Maltese customers are accustomed to, Go said.

Recent figures released by the National Statistics Office showed that around 331,000 Maltese travelled overseas last year. Those figures have considerable implications on the service expected from mobile operators.

Since the merger and formation of Go plc, the company embarked on a financial commitment of €100 million aimed at the full rehaul of its current and future infrastructure and services. One of the major initiatives included in this project was the consolidation and extension of the company’s international roaming service.

Roaming involves the switching of a customer’s mobile line to the network of a roaming partner at arrival in a destination.