Update November 2000: Malta

1. Introduction

The Maltese Government is actively preparing the legislative framework of the country to bring it in line with the requirements for accession into the European Union. Significant importance is being given to the telecommunications and data services sector. In the last update report, two major legislative elements were mentioned: The new Telecommunications Services Regulations Act and the white paper on Information Practices.

2. Legislative framework

2.1 Telecommunications Services Regulations

The new Telecommunications Services Regulations Act has been debated in parliament and subsequently enacted. The next phase to actuate these regulations will be for government to set up a Telecommunications Authority that will perform the function of a telecommunications regulator.

2.2 Information Practices

A white paper on the legislative framework for information practices comprising draft bills on Electronic commerce, Data protection and Computer misuse was published earlier on this year. The bill was taken through the first reading in parliament.

3. The marketplace

The second mobile network operator, Mobisle Communications Limited is progressing through the final phases of setting up the necessary infrastructure to start providing a state-of-the-art mobile service. The latter, branded ‘Go Mobile’, is expected to be launched later on this year. Nortel has been awarded the contract for a turnkey project based on its DCS 1800 mobile network solution. The other mobile operator, Vodafone (Malta), which has been the sole operator in the field for the past 10 years, announced that it has been preparing and is now ready for competion in the mobile network market.

Earlier on this year Datastream Limited, a subsidiary of Maltacom p.l.c., launched a pilot project based on Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Loop (ADSL) technology. During the previous quarter the company announced that they had connected about 200 subscribers who were interested in taking part in this pilot project. During this quarter the number of participants in the project continued to increase at a considerable rate. Datastream is also the provider of international Internet bandwidth. The latter has increase five fold between August 1999 and August 2000 from 5 to about 26 megabits per second. It is expected that demand for Internet bandwidth continues to increase at an accelerating rate.

Melita Cable TV, a private monopoly providing cable television, continued to upgrade its distribution network in anticipation of further liberalisation of the data communications market. Network upgrades are aimed at providing interactive data services such as access to the Internet.

4. Key contact persons

There were no significant changes in key contact persons during the third quarter of year 2000. The appointment of a chairperson for the Telecommunications Authority is expected to be announced later this year.