Vodafone Malta has invested €12 million to deliver high speed mobile broadband over an environmentally-friendly network.

Vodafone Malta CEO Inaki Berroeta said: "We have used this commercial opportunity to reduce our carbon emissions and the new investment will lessen our direct impact on the environment by ensuring higher capacity and better user experience."

He said that together with its technology partner Nokia Siemens Networks, Vodafone Malta completed the upgrade of its radio network to offer download speeds of up to 14.4 megabits per seconds in selective areas and countrywide download speeds of 7.2 megabits, the fastest on the island.

Communications Minister Austin Gatt said figures for 2009 showed that the competition among the three mobile service providers was having a positive effect on customers.

He said yearly SMS traffic per active subscriber decreased by nine per cent as a result of bundle offers by the providers and calls increased by 13 per cent, up to an average of 731 from 647 minutes a year per subscriber. Dr Gatt said that in 2009 Malta's mobile penetration stood at 102.1 per cent, an increase of 8.8 per cent over 2008.

Active internet users increased by 8.4 per cent over 2008 and broadband subscriptions increased by 11.6 per cent over the previous year.

On e-commerce on the internet, the minister said that a monitoring exercise in September revealed that 63 per cent of regular internet users concluded an e-commerce transaction online.