|
|
Here are the Archived entries for 2006
|
| Welcome to Maltameter!
|
 |
 |
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
You may have heared about this website a few months ago. In fact, it
has been in the pipeline for several months now, but I never actually
had the time and motivation to create it.
This
site is intended to be the place where one may find all technology news
relating to Malta that affects the consumer. So what does this mean? It
means we will be publishing information about some new service from
some ISP, or maybe a new mobile company, wireless internet, a new
product that you will want to buy, etc. However, we will NOT be
publishing news about some odd company offering services for other
companies. We are absolutely not interested in B2B. So, if you're a
businessman, sorry, this site is not for you.
As time goes by,
more and more content will be added. Meanwhile, if you happen to find
some interesting news we aren't aware of yet, we encourage you to
submit it to us (from the menu on the left). We will then read it and
if it applies for our site, we will publish it here. You may also visit
our forum and start posting.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 April 2006 ) |
|
|
| Scan's new showroom hours
|
|
|
|
| Written by thelink |
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Scan Computers Malta (PC Options Ltd) has changed its opening hours.
The showroom is now open from 9am to 7pm non-stop (9am - 12:30pm on
Saturdays). Previously the showroom closed for 2 hours in the
afternoon. Besides the new hours, Scan has also re-arranged the layout
of its showroom and added more sales rapresentatives. One can only
speculate... will competitors follow?
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 April 2006 ) |
|
|
| Gozo Computer and Technology Fair
|
|
|
|
| Written by thelink |
Thursday, 20 April 2006
From tomorrow till Sunday 23rd the Computer and Technology Fair will be
held at the Gozo Sports Complex. Several suppliers from both islands
will be present to showcase their latest producs and services. Some of
the organisations present will include the Swatar Training Centre
(STC), the IT Ministry, HSBC and ETC.
The fair is being organised by Sign It and is supported by the Gozo Business Chamber, Gozo Channel and the Ministry for Gozo.
Besides the fair, a seminar on the pros and cons of the Internet will be held at Ninu Cremona New Lyceum.
The fair will be open at the following times:
Friday: 18:00 - 21:00
Saturday: 18:00 - 22:00
Sunday: 10:00 - 12:30, 15:00 - 21:00
Maltameter will be present and will report on the event, watch this space!
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 April 2006 ) |
|
|
| More International bandwidth coming soon
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Friday, 21 April 2006
In yesterday's Times of Malta, Business section, there is an article that interests us all. It says that Maltanet is increasing its bandwidth from 700Mbps to 1.2Gbps. Just to remind you what this means, Maltanet has recently merged with Datastream, so this doesn't mean more bandwidth for just one ISP, but more overall bandwidth available for all national ISP's that are using Maltanet's services. I know what you might be saying when you see those figures. Is 700Mbps all the bandwidth we currently have shared between all of us? Well, according to this article which seems quite informed as they interviewed Maltanet's CEO, Keath Fearne, that's pretty much it.
To mention a bit of more technical details, Maltanet's CEO mentioned that in order to offer more bandwidth, they are about to upgrade their communication apparatus in Malta and Sicily in order to be able to use more than one frequency, which, therefore increases the bitrates that the fibre optic cable is able to deliver. For those who don't know what this means, the data is transmitted using different laser colours at one end, and then the different colours are split at the other end to produce different data streams. Fearne also said that 1.2Gbps won't be all. It will be the number they will be able to achieve by next June, but further growth is planned.
For more information, read the whole article.
|
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 22 April 2006 ) |
|
|
| WiMAX delayed.. for a good cause
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Sunday, 23 April 2006
Lsdast Friday, 21st April, MCA (Malta Communications Authority) issued a statement of proposed decision regarding the extension of deployment timeframes. As most of you probably already know, last October / November, 3 licenses for Broadband Wireless Access (wireless Internet) were granted in the 5GHz band. The 3 companies that got the license were Cellcom (a consortium of a number of ISPs including NextGen, Euroweb, etc.), Mobisle (Go Mobile), and Vodafone. Cellcom and Vodafone were obliged of having 50% coverage of the whole Maltese territory by next October, while Mobisle was supposed to offer 39% coverage by the same date. All these companies were supposed to use the WiMax protocols.
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Sunday, 23 April 2006 ) |
|
|
| After the Gozo Computer and Technology Fair
|
|
|
|
| Written by thelink |
Sunday, 23 April 2006
MaltaMeter visited the Gozo Computer and Technology fair today morning.
If there is one word I would use to describe it, it's "quiet". The
fair, held in the Gozo sports complex, consisted of about 12 stands.
Present were OnVol, who were hosting a LAN party co-organised by
GozoLan in their stand, the largest. Also present were suppliers such
as PC Zone and ICS, who were showcasing their latest products. The MITI
was also present, as well as some computer-related furniture sellers.
One stand belonged to the Swatar Training Centre (STC) which was
displaying its array of courses. (Press read more)
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| Google Earth improves Maltese maps
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Monday, 01 May 2006
 We know this is not really hot news, and we're even a few days late on this, but as nothing has been going on lately, I thought this is interesting enough to deserve an article.
Google's World mapping service - Google Earth (earth.google.com) has recently improved Malta's aerial photo from extremely low detail to a decently detailed one. It's not as detailed as in the UK and USA, but it's definitely a great improvement. Interestingly enough, however, Google didn't get a complete photo of our islands. The improved part is between Qormi and Xaghra - Gozo. Therefore, the Southern part of Malta and the Northern part of Gozo are still in the dark. But still, the new images gives a better perspective of where our localities are situated. I was impressed on how much some villages are separated from the other. We're not really living in one whole chunk of building.
The screenshot was taken in the part where the old low-resolution photo and the new photo join.
|
| Last Updated ( Monday, 01 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| Mobile Roaming Rates: The ERG speaks up
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 11 May 2006
Those of you who have used the mobile phone while abroad, know that the roaming prices are ridiculously high. Recently, we did see some slight reductions, but the prices are still high enough to be described as unreasable. The guys at the European Commission seem to be highly upset by all this, and for that reason, on February 8th, they released a document with some proposals, followed by a highly controversial public consultation document on 3rd April. The EC is accepting comments and proposals until tomorrow, 12th May regarding the latter document. In it, the EC proposed a number of drastic measures to enforce price reductions, with the most strict one proposing that the operators should charge their customers the same amount while abroad that they would charge them in their home country. As expected, the mobile operators didn't like what was written, and most of them described these proposals as being unfair and stating that they would undermine profitability and competitivity.
Today, a few hours before the deadline for submission of comments, the European Regulators Group (ERG), which is an advisory group representing the national telecom regulators of the individual EU countries (MCA in our case), published a press release regarding this matter. In its press release, ERG stated that while it fully agrees with the EC regarding the fact that mobile roaming prices are too high and that they must be regulated, the measures proposed by the EC were too drastic. The ERG proposed that a price cap of around 30 Eurocents should be enforced on wholesale roaming rates, with 'wholesale' meaning the price that operators pay each other for the connectivity. Further on, if within 6 months the price reductions are not passed on to the customers, then a price cap on retail rates should come to force. Here, ERG proposes that an EU-wide price cap should be implemented, and that also every individual national regulator should have the right to enforce a lower price cap than the European one.
Although this seems like a lengthy process, the EC intends to present a set of finalised proposals to the European Parliament before the beginning of Summer, which has the final say. So, although it won't be so soon, it seems like within a year or so, we may start getting a fair deal when roaming.
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Friday, 12 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| ICM and Maltatel - to be considered dead
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Last year you probably have noticed some of the hype regarding this new telephone company that is set to revolutionalise the call prices, offer low cost wireless Internet access, and all that. These guys also submitted application forms in every Maltapost post office, and even asked for a deposit of Lm5 simply to fill in a form - when the service wasn't even available anywhere. The company in question was Maltatel.
A few months later, we received the truth - ICM, the mother company of Maltatel requested a withdrawal of the license for its wireless network. Today, however, we just learnt that not only ICM closed down Maltatel, but they even have got almost Lm7000 debt with the MCA (Malta Communications Authority) - Lm6,956.74 to be precise. Therefore, MCA is warning ICM that if they don't receive any acceptable response from them by 14th June, they will have to withdraw ICM's general authorisation license, which is the license every ISP and telecom operator has to pay.
So, there it is - bye bye ICM and Maltatel. We wonder what happened to those Lm5 deposits some people paid. Any ideas? Anyone?
*** UPDATE 19th May ***
ICM notified MCA they will no longer be offering any publicly available electronic communications services. So it's official now - ICM is dead.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom to change all card phones soon
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 24 May 2006
 A few weeks ago, Maltacom announced they will be upgrading their
payphone network to a completely new system. As the announcement wasn't
very detailed and we didn't know what this should mean to most of us,
we contacted a Maltacom representative who is responsible of the card
phone system. We were told that the reason that triggered this upgrade
was that the chip used on the current telecards is being phased out by
its manufacturers. Faced with this problem, Maltacom had to decide
whether to upgrade the current phones or switch completely to a more
modern system. The second option was selected mainly because the cost
to upgrade the current network was too high, and it was cheaper to
start from scratch!
Regarding user experience, the new phones are expected to be very
similar to the current ones - simply insert the card in the slot and
dial out. No pins, no nothing. Just dial your number as you're used to.
The one advantage that one may notice is that while the old phones used
a "pulse" system in order to charge for calls, where a card had a
number of pulses - costing around 5c every pulse and you are charged by
the pulse, the new phones have a modern system that supports more
granular charging. Therefore, when dialling abroad from a card phone,
one will be charged by the second, rather than in 5c increments.
As you might have already assumed, the new telephones will be using a different
card, and therefore you will have to get rid of your current cards
shortly. The new network will start being rolled out in September, and
Maltacom is suggesting you aim to use up your cards between October and
December.
A photo of the new telephone may be seen on the left.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| Official: WiMAX delayed by 6 months
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 25 May 2006
Last month, we reported that MCA (Malta Communications Authority) was considering whether to extend the timelines that the ISP's that applied for a license to offer wireless Internet were supposed to follow. This was because of the developments in the new WiMAX flavour - 802.16e. The main advantage of the new standard is that it offers much better mobility than its predecessors. However, 802.16e is not yet available on the shelf, but it would be soon. Therefore, the ISP's have requested a 6 month extension in order to wait for the new equipment to come out and install it as soon as it does.
Today, MCA announced that it has decided in favour of the grant of this extension. The new timelines state that by next April (2007), Cellcom and Vodafone should have 50% coverage of the Maltese territory, while Go Mobile should have 39%. We're hoping the new services will create a shake in the current service offerings. We'll wait and see.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 May 2006 ) |
|
|
| ADSL subscribers get a free upgrade
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Saturday, 10 June 2006
In its latest move to stay competitive against its rival OnVol, Maltanet has announced it is doubling the download speed of the subscribers currently on 2048/256 to 4096kbps for no extra cost. This should affect all ADSL users - not only those subscribed directly to Maltanet. So, if you have an 2048/256 ADSL account with Maltanet, Keyworld, NextWeb, IT&T or any other ISP, expect to have your download speed increased very soon. As usual, there is no guarantee you will be getting the full 4096kbps downstream. It all depends on line quality, cable distance from the nearest telephone exchange, etc.
Although you probably won't notice much difference except when downloading files from the Web, a free upgrade is always good. Unfortunately, however, the difference between the downstream and the upstream data rate is always getting wider. We first started with 512/128, having downstream 4 times as fast as the upstream. Now, we will have a downstream speed 16 times faster than the upstream! We wonder whether this situation will ever get better.
|
| Last Updated ( Monday, 12 June 2006 ) |
|
|
| Datastream's Lavender to be discontinued
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Saturday, 24 June 2006
For the last two years or so, some small ISP's, namely Camline, Vanilla and BellNet and some others used a service from Datastream branded as "Lavender" to offer ADSL to their customers. This was (is) a system where an ISP doesn't need to have any servers or a fast Internet connection or anything. All these were being offered by Datastream. All the ISP would have to offer was a mail server if email service was required. These ISP's would then sell Internet access to their customers, appearing as if they were offering the service, when in fact, the users were connecting to Datastream's infrastructure. I'm not saying there was anything wrong there - the users were happy... at least some of them were, the ISP's were happy because they were earning money without investing anything at all, and everything worked mostly as it should have.
Read on.
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Sunday, 25 June 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom launches "Call Home" service
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 05 July 2006
The Trade Fair is with us, Summer is in full swing, and the time when a large number of Maltese people go abroad on holiday is here as well. So, at this strategic time of year, Maltacom decided to launch a new service for those who will be going abroad: Call Home.
With this service, Maltacom is offering you the option of instead having to carry phone cards around when abroad, all you'd have to do is pick up any phone anywhere, dial a toll free number, and then dial the Maltese number you want to dial. The person receiving the call will listen to a message asking whether to accept the call - for which s/he will have to pay. That way, you can call your mom at home making sure she will incur the full cost of the call. The rates are quite cheap - to quote some - 1c5/min from Australia, 5c/min from Italy, etc. There are some catches though. Some payphones require a card before they even give you a dial tone. Also, upon successful call connection - that is once the person on the other end picks up the phone and accepts the call, a connection fee of 17c7 is charged. The connection fee is only charged at the beginning of the call, and doesn't depend on the duration of the call.
For a complete list of prices and toll free numbers for all countries in which this service is available, click here.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 05 July 2006 ) |
|
|
| EU Mobile Roaming Rates: Developments Roundup
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Sunday, 23 July 2006
Back in May, we reported
that the European Regulators Group (ERG) sent in their comments about
the issue about mobile roaming fees within the EU. Previously, the
European Commission was proposing a price cap on the retail price for
roaming, but the ERG suggested that would be too uncompetitive and
instead suggested a price cap on the wholesale prices (the price
operators pay each other). Then, if within a number of months the
operators don't pass those price reductions to their customers, a price
cap on retail prices (the price paid by the customer) would be
implemented as well.
A little more than two months have passed,
and last week, on the 12th of July to be exact, the European Commission
presented a new proposal which was almost identical to what the ERG
suggested. This document does not provide a lot of hard numbers. To
highlight the most important aspects, it proposes that the wholesale
price is regulated, and it is to be calculated accoring to the costs
that the operators incur to provide the service. The other aspect is
that the retail price may only be up to 30% higher than the wholesale
price.
Read on.
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Sunday, 23 July 2006 ) |
|
|
| Vodafone Malta launches 3G
|
|
|
|
| Written by Maltameter (Webmaster) |
Thursday, 17 August 2006
You've probably already heared - this morning TV and radio stations,
newspapers, and Vodafone's website were filled with news that Vodafone
has just launched their 3G UMTS network. As we were so eagerly waiting
for this to be announced, immediate interest was aroused.
Unfortunately, we were a bit disappointed with what we saw on
Vodafone's site.
So why were we waiting for UMTS? Data of course!
Upon visiting Vodafone's website,
one can see a number of adverts for 3G. But what are they promoting it
for? Video calling and video messaging! I don't know about you readers,
but I, for one, will probably never use video phoning... OK, maybe I'll
use it just once - to try it out. The price plan for video phoning is
25c/min to Malta, and 60c/min for an overseas call. The price for video
messaging is 10c and 25c to local and international destinations
respectively.
For data, Vodafone then came up with a new data plan called "Vodafone
Liberty". Unfortunately, this data plan is intended for business users,
and its cost reflects its target. Vodafone is asking you to pay Lm19.50
monthly, and that avails you to 1GB of download. If you exceed that
gigabyte, you'll be charged 54c for every extra MB downloaded.
Impressive! By the way, UMTS is only available in the Valletta/Sliema
and airport areas for now. Also, there is no mention of HSDPA which would offer much faster data rates.
After these depressing thoughts, I believe there is still hope left.
The service is just starting up, Go Mobile will be rolling out their 3G
network soon, and things may change in a relatively short time. Also,
although the current data prices are SO bad, they are still much lower
than for GPRS, although Lm19.50 monthly is still way too much to pay
for 1GB. We'll keep you informed as things develop.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 August 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom to change cardphone call tariffs
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Saturday, 02 September 2006
Back in May, we reported that Maltacom was about to change its cardphone network, with the roll-out starting on September. Well, September is here and Maltacom are about to get the project running. In an announcement on Maltacom's website, the public can now see the details of what is about to happen. To summarise, the old cardphones will be replaced between September and October, but 100 old phones distributed in various localities will be left there for now so that the public will have time to use up the old cards (new phones are not compatible with the current cards).
The most interesting part of the announcement, however, is the new tariff structure. Starting from 18th September 2006, a call from a cardphone to a fixed line will cost 5c9 per 2.5 minutes (charged in chunks of 5c9), while a call to a mobile phone will cost 6c2 for every 15 seconds, translating to 24c8 per minute! That's not all - the new cardphones will support calls using the Ten21 VoIP service with a tariff of 1c5 per minute to a large number of countries. So, in other words, a 2 minute call to someone with a fixed line in Malta will cost you 5c9, while a similar call to the USA will cost you 3c! We guess it's time to politely ask your friends to emigrate.
|
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 02 September 2006 ) |
|
|
| Vanilla Telecoms stops offering ADSL service
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 06 September 2006
One of the most ISP's we heard of lately - Vanilla Telecoms, today sent an email to its users informing them that in order to focus solely on their wireless broadband service, VanillaSKY, they will be abandoning ADSL. Their ADSL users are being offered a similar ADSL connection with Maltanet, and they should switch by 15th September - that's just 9 days.
For some reason, up till now, VanillaSKY prices remained relatively higher than ADSL, with P2P traffic having low priority. They have always claimed that this makes sense because they were offering VanillaSKY mostly to gamers and people who demand very low latency. But now this has changed. Will Vanilla Telecoms as an ISP offer services for gamers only? Or will we be seeing more packages aimed at the common users? We'll wait and see. As at the time of writing, their site isn't updated yet.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 September 2006 ) |
|
|
| BBC World features mobile Internet offerings
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 14 September 2006
As recently we were talking about 3G (and will keep talking about it very soon), we thought this week's BBC World's "Click" TV programme is worth mentioning. For those not familiar with the Beeb, "Click" is a weekly TV show about the latest technologies - aimed at the general public. This week, there's an interesting feature focusing on 3G without even mentioning video calls and the usual marketing stuff the operators are trying to convince us with. The feature focuses only on mobile Internet access.
For those of you who have cable, digital terrestrial or satellite TV, you may watch a repeat of this week's show on Friday, 15th September at 11:30am, Saturday 16th at 8:30am, and on Tuesday 19th at 3:30am and 9:30am. For those deprived of a decent TV service or who are too lazy/busy to watch the show at the scheduled times, you may visit the website bbcworld.com/click and view the streaming videos or read the transcripts. Please note, however that at the time of writing the site isn't updated yet and still has last week's content. But this is normal. The site will probably be updated on Friday.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 September 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom punished hard for thwarting competition
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Tuesday, 26 September 2006
Maltacom has been given a fine of Lm10,000 and another fine of Lm200 daily, backdated to 10th August 2006. This was the result of a decision by MCA last Friday regarding the failure by Maltacom to cooperate in achieving agreements with Melita Cable regarding interconnection. As you probably all know by now, Melita Cable launched a VoIP service last year, and is aiming to convert it from a simple low-cost limited service to a full telephony package. However, till now, Melita has been unable to do this because its "Hello" network cannot reach Maltacom's and Go Mobile's phones. Melita has been trying to finalise agreements for a long time, but Maltacom kept trying to lengthen the time, even when it was legally bound to finalise agreements within 120 working days. On 10th August, the Malta Communications Authority (MCA) issued a warning letter to Maltacom, to which Maltacom retaliated with a legal letter claiming that MCA was acting in breach of law in this regard. On Friday, MCA gave Maltacom the finger and published their final decision. Maltacom will have to keep paying Lm200 daily until they sign the final agreements with Melita. May justice prevail.
|
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 September 2006 ) |
|
|
| P2P vs. ISPs - eMule fights back
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 04 October 2006
We hear it all the time. "P2P is so slow.. how do I make it faster? Is it because I'm with OnVOL?" The reason why P2P is ever becoming slower is because ISP's have specialised software/hardware known as "traffic shaper" which can identify P2P traffic and give it low priority. Sometimes it is discriminated so much that it becomes impossible to download anything.
It turns out P2P application developers aren't living in a trance after all. eMule, a very popular application used to share files with other users on the Internet have recently released a new feature - protocol obfuscation. So what is it exactly? In normal cases, P2P traffic is very predictable. It works in a standard manner, and can easily be identified as such by rather simple means. Protocol obfuscation changes this by making the data used for P2P communications appear as random data which is unidentifiable to traffic shapers - or so is the eMule team claiming. At the moment, as this is a very new feature, only a small number of users have obfuscation support on their eMule client, and until everyone upgrades, this will work only with those users who have the latest versions. Also, this feature is not enabled by default, but those users who are suffering from low speed connections because of traffic shapers should simple enable it. We have not yet had the opportunity to test this out, but we would like to hear from you how this affected your speed.
For more information about the eMule protocol obfuscation, click here.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom, Melita and Vodafone complain about MCA's spending
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 05 October 2006
Yesterday's edition of the Business Today has an article in which the big players in the local telecommunications field are complaining about the excessive amount of money MCA (the local telecoms regulator) is spending. For those who are not aware, according to an EU recommendation, regulators across Europe are supposed to charge only the amount of money that needs to be spent in administrative fees. Therfore, no regulator should be making any profit from the cost of licenses and other charges that telecom operators pay. Maltacom, Melita, and Vodafone have sent a letter to competitiveness minister Censu Galea and MCA chairman Joseph V. Tabone complaining about the current situation. The operators claim that the money MCA is spending has been needlessly increasing lately, and it is the operators themselves who have to pay for MCA's lack of good management. Apart from that, the companies in question are also claiming that the license fees and other charges they are paying are more than is required to cover the expenses incurred by MCA to run its offices.
In their complaint, the operators say that "authorisation fees are 25 times those paid by a UK operator and in the
case of spectrum fees, Vodafone and Go Mobile pay fees 10 times higher
than in the UK." The aim of their complaint is to urge the government to address MCA's "unlimited latitudes to incur expenditure just because the operators
will be paying for it."
For the complete article, click here.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Local ISP's to file EU complaint regarding state aid
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 05 October 2006
Today's The Times Business section contains an interesting article about the filing of a complaint to the European Commision that the local ISP's organised within the Malta Chamber of Commerce are about to do. The companies in question are claiming that Maltacom and Melita Cable were and still are receiving aid from the government; giving them unfair advantage against their competitors. Being part of a business-oriented publication, this article goes slightly in some extra details that are beyond the scope of Maltameter. However, to quote the most important parts, the ISP's are also complaining about how indirectly Maltacom funded Maltanet's losses between 1995 and 2004 - which losses are calculated to have reached Lm1.8 million. Another complaint is that in 1991, when Melita Cable set up its network, they were given permission by the government to install boxes on the facades of anyone without asking for permission and without paying anything. Apart from that, "Melita was also given a 90 per cent discount on the cost of the use of
the ducts belonging to Telemalta/government (as Maltacom was then). It
was only in 2004 that it started paying at least Lm120,000 a year". Also, the ISP's are complaining about the fact that Melita has still not opened their network for any ISP to use - just as ADSL is. A comment is made about the irony that Melita is complaining about Maltacom not opening their network for interconnection when themselves are not allowing anyone to use theirs.
The article also gave space to Melita's view. One very important point that is made here is that since Malta signed the EU in 2003, it was then when the local companies were obliged to start abiding by the EU rules, and therefore, no one can make any claims about what was going on prior to that date.
If you would like to read the whole article, click here.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Google Earth acknowledges Malta
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Saturday, 07 October 2006
Once again, Google Earth has improved the aerial images of Malta. This time, the image of the Southern part of Malta has been changed to a very high resolution photograph. It is detailed enough to find exactly where you live - as long as you live in Malta. Unfortunately, Gozo still remains in the dark, but maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, that might change too. It's only a matter of time. Also, for those who remember the article on The Register which pointed out that Malta was completely invisible on Google Maps, can now rest assured that Google has acknowledged our existance and in the map (not the aerial photo), one can find an outline of the Maltese islands. Just an outline - no roads, no nothing.. but well, at least we can now confirm Malta exists.
|
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 07 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Timesofmalta.com domain expired!
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Monday, 09 October 2006
Those who today have tried vising the website of The Times newspaper were left asking the question "what da...?". Well, it seems like whoever was responsible of the domain, ignored all the notification emails warning about the domain expiring, and left it to expire. Now, the Times' site is down and will remain down until the domain is retreived back from eNom. A little investigation of the eNom's whois revealed the domain was registered by Bell Med who appear to be part of Bell Net as they have exactly the same logo (and name). I don't know who these guys are or who was responsible of this fiasco, but until the truth is revealed, I wouldn't trust them with a pocket calculator!
|
| Read more... |
| Last Updated ( Monday, 09 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom and Melita sign interconnection deal
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 11 October 2006
Last month, we reported that Maltacom is being fined for not signing the interconnection contract with Melita which would enable Melita to make calls to the Maltacom network from it's "Hello" service. Since that time, Melita and Go mobile signed the interconnection contract (a contract with Vodafone had already been signed long before). Now, just today, Melita and Maltacom have finally struck the final deal. So finally, it seems like the fixed line price wars are about to begin. We should expect Melita to announce the new Hello rates very soon.
To see Maltacom's announcement regarding the contract signature, click here. (not much to read, but anyway).
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 11 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom and DTTV - what happened?
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 19 October 2006
We have all heard rumours that the DTTV (Digital Terrestrial Television) operator Multiplus will be taken over by Maltacom. The source of all these rumours probably was the fact that Maltanet's IT&T fair offer consists of a free Multiplus box for new subscribers or a box with a lower price for other customers. We have also heard that Maltacom couldn't start up their own network even though they have a license to do so, because the frequencies they were assigned, are no longer assigned to Malta. We didn't write anything about all this at the moment because we were waiting for something more official from Maltacom or MCA. Up till now, this didn't happen, but today, The Times published an article regarding this matter on iTech (technology section). Basically it says nothing new - except for confirming that there actually is a problem regarding the frequencies assigned to Maltacom. Meanwhile, Maltacom still won't say anything about whether they will be taking over Multiplus, but Jan Spiteri, the chief executive of Multiplus actually insisted that the Maltanet promotion has nothing to do with Maltacom. Well, we'll wait and see.
To see the full article on The Times, click here.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Local telephony market set to start shaking soon
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Monday, 23 October 2006
A few days ago we were reporting that Maltacom and Melita had finally
signed the interconnection agreement. Meanwhile, Maltacom and Telemail
also signed an agreement for carrier pre-selection. For those who need
a quick explanation, this means that now Melita's "Hello" can also call
Maltacom phones, and Telemail's "Sky Telecom" can start operating soon.
Carrier pre-selection means still using Maltacom's lines but then going
through another operator at the exchange.
Since then, at the end of last week, Hello published their rates.
Basically, the rates are as follows: Hello to Hello rates are free,
Hello to Maltacom rates are charged at 1c per minute, and Hello to
mobile calls are charged at 12c4 per minute. All of these are charged
on a per-second basis. So, although the rates are quite similar to
Maltacom's, one would still be spending less because Maltacom tends to
charge in whole chunks. What's interesting is that the "off-peak" and
"night" rates for calls from Hello to Maltacom lines, can be said to be
more expensive than Maltacom's in a certain sense. This is because, for
example Hello charges a night call to Maltacom at 0.3c per minute.
Meanwhile, Maltacom charges 1 pulse (5.39c) per 30 minutes. At that
rate, if you were to do a Hello - Maltacom call and keep talking for 30
minutes, it would cost you 9c. OK, we're just talking a few cents here,
but it's still worth mentioning. Hello's line rental is also cheaper -
Lm1.66 per month, compared to Lm2.57 charged by Maltacom. In other
words, it appears that Hello will save you some money but not that much
- unless all your friends switch to Hello because then you'll be
calling them for free. According to Melita's sales representative I
talked to, installation of a Hello line will cost Lm10, however -
attention here - for a limited time offer, installation is totally
free, and the rent will also be free for the first few (days?). So, if
you're thinking of subscribing, subscribe NOW before it's too late. One
thing that is against Melita is that their telephony service requires a
cable modem. This is provided for free, however it requires
electricity. Therefore, unless you connect that modem to a UPS, you
won't be able to make or receive calls when Enemalta decides to cut off
your mains power. In the future they may solve this by providing modems
that have a battery back-up - although they have said nothing about it
yet.
Meanwhile, you may have seen adverts on TV and newspapers of this new
telephone company - Sky Telecoms. Basically, it's owned by Telemail
which I mentioned earlier here. If you visit their website on sky.com.mt
all you'll see is a flash presentation saying they will offer free line
rental, free calls - free whatever. We'll have to wait and see
regarding this one. They simply cannot offer everything for free
especially when they are depending on Maltacom to use their lines, but
their offers might be interesting.
|
| Last Updated ( Monday, 23 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Scan Servicing department... open till 5
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Tuesday, 24 October 2006
Those people who normally buy from Scan mainly because of the good after sales service they offer will now have their main reason compromised. Scan are *proudly* announcing their new servicing departement opening times. These are 8am - 12:30pm and 1:30pm - 5pm weekdays, and Saturdays from 8am till 12:30pm starting from 6th November. In other words, those people who used to find it comfortable to return their defective items after work, will now have to reschedule their plans and go during the day. Well well..
|
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Sky Telecom launched
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 26 October 2006
A few days ago, we reported the telephone rates published by Melita Cable's "Hello". As we said then, there is some advantage to switching to Hello - lower call rates (up to a certain points), and lower line rental. Meanwhile, these last few days we had an overflow of ads and articles about this new exciting telephone company named "Sky". Today, this company was launched, and after having their website down for almost all day, finally we could see what they are offering - to which we were amazed.
Basically, for residential users, they have 3 plans to choose from. The first two require a subscription, while the last one is pre-paid. The first plan requires the subscriber to pay Lm9.99 monthly, while the second plan is even worse at Lm14.99 monthly! They even have the cheek to say that line rental is free! I think these guys are pretty bad at math, since as far as I know, "free" means Lm0.00. Or I may be wrong.. things have changed since my old days. Anyway, for those prices, in the first plan, you get "up to 10 hrs Free" of local calls, while in the second plan you get "up to 12hrs Free" of local calls and "up to 1hr Free" of local mobile calls. In both plans you also get 1 hr of "free" international calls to major destinations. We expect those "major destinations" to be those countries to which Maltacom charges 1c5/min using Ten21. Also, note the "up to" in all cases. If this "up to 10hrs" means 10 hours at the night rate, then this may be officially called a complete rip-off. On the night rate, Maltacom charges 5.39c per 30 minutes - making 10 hours cost Lm1.08. Calls to mobile phones are charged at 5c5 every 30 seconds. This may look slightly cheaper than Maltacom's rate, but do remember that you are being charged in chunks of 5c5, making short calls (as in most cases) more expensive. Also, local calls outside the plan (if exceeding 10 hours or 12) are charged at standard Maltacom rates. The third plan is a pre-paid system similar to Easyline - you don't pay any rent (really), but you'll be paying for local calls at 6c per pulse and mobile calls at 7c per 30 seconds. They haven't yet decided when the pre-paid cards should expire and if there should be a minimum limit of calls to make. A plan for business users is also available - although that is outside our scope.
If you really want to know more, you may visit Sky's website on sky.com.mt
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 October 2006 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom triples international bandwidth
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
Back in April, we reported that more International bandwidth was coming soon from Maltacom. At that time, we said that the bandwidth was going up to 1.2Gbps - well, that's what Maltacom was saying at that time. Today, the news were filled with this announcement that Maltacom is about to complete two large projects - the bandwidth upgrade and the switchover to softswitch technology at it's core network. According to di-ve, which happens to be the closest news source to Maltacom, the international bandwidth will now reach 1.8Gbps. More interesting from that, Mr. Fearne, Maltacom's CEO said that "initial trials for the provision of DSL services at very high speeds are being scheduled for first quarter of 2007". There's no word on how high this speed is planned to be, and whether upstream rates will ever get better than they are now. As usual, we'll have to wait and see, but at least, things are moving.
|
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 November 2006 ) |
|
|
| Melita Cable officially launches "Hello"
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Thursday, 23 November 2006
Today, the 23rd of November 2006, can be marked as the day when the Maltacom fixed line monopoliy officially ended. This is because Melita Cable today launched their completely independent telephone system under the brand name "hello". Upon visiting their updates site, we were disappointed by the fact that line rental is no longer at Lm1.66 per month, but it now stands at Lm2.95 monthly. That's 38c5 more expensive than Maltacom's rental. However, with Hello, customers get 100 free minutes to Maltacom landlines which they can use whenever they want, while with Maltacom, 20 calls that can only be used during off-peak timeframes are given for free. Also, Hello to Hello calls are free of charge, and calls to mobile phones are at 10c/min while from Maltacom, a 1 minute call costs 15.48c. Another advantage is that while Maltacom charges with chunks of 5 minutes when calling other landlines, Hello uses a fairer rate of per-minute charging. Therfore, while a call with Maltacom can never cost less than 5.39c, a call from Hello to Maltacom can cost as low as 0.3c if that call is made during off-peak times, and if it lasts less than 1 minute! Also, Hello subscribers get a number of "star" services for free which include call forwarding. Apart from the postpaid service, a pre-paid service is supposed to be launched early next year.
In the last article I wrote about Hello, I mentioned the fact that unless a UPS is used, a Hello line would go down during electricity cut-offs. Well.. it seems like this concern has got to the ears of Melita, and in their FAQ there's written that in the near future,
a modem that has an 8-hour battery backup will be introduced. Meanwhile, it will be interesting how Maltacom will react to the newly introduced competition.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 23 November 2006 ) |
|
|
| Expect Maltacom to change tariffs soon
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Sunday, 26 November 2006
The Sunday Times, today published an article in which Maltacom's CEO, David Kay was interviewed regarding Maltacom's expected reactions to the recent local telephony market developments - ie. Hello (and Sky). Mr. Kay's most interesting words were "Our customers can expect changes in our tariffs in the coming days and
weeks. Apart from tariff changes, our goal is to ensure we continue
developing into a more customer-oriented company, as the competition is
also on the level of customer experience we offer."
We'll have to see where this leads to. The best thing with Hello is that there are no 5 minute "pulses". The idea of "pulses" is unfair, and if Maltacom holds on to it, Hello will always have an advantage in this regard. For those unaware, telephony is not the only market where Maltacom is applying pulses. In Go Mobile's GPRS, you have to pay 3c per 60KB. This means that whenever you connect - even if all you do is check if an RSS feed was updated, and use up only 2KB, you are still charged 3c. Things get much worse if for example someone tries to use MSN over GPRS and the mobile phone keeps losing connection to the GPRS network and reconnecting. In other words, if as David Kay said Maltacom will be analysing its rates, the analysis should consider the fact that pulses are an unfair method of charging and customers just hate it - even if they think they got used to it after all these years.
The article also mentions the fact that at the moment, Hello doesn't work during power cuts, and that Melita has yet to clarify this issue. As we reported earlier, Melita is promising modems with battery backup - a thing The Sunday Times failed to mention.
|
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 21 February 2008 ) |
|
|
| Maltacom offers free telephony
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Friday, 01 December 2006
The price war is on. Maltacom has announced that during the month of December, Maltacom - Maltacom calls held on weekdays between 6pm-6am and all day during weekends, are totally free. This offer, however applies only to postpaid customer (no Easyline), and for those still on dial-up, bad news - this offer does not apply to 2188 and 2186 numbers. Obviously, this is the first of Maltacom's tricks to compete with Hello. However, it might also be a means for Maltacom to test their new soft-switch infrastructure under heavy load during less critical times, so if everything goes fine, then they will adjust all the rates permanently.
We do not yet know whether this offer applies to iPhone, but after reading the Terms and Conditions it seems that calls to and from iPhone (numbers starting with 3456) are not included in this offer. There is however an interesting new feature for those using iPhone (Maltacom's Voice over Broadband - VoBB service). Calls from iPhone to Maltacom numbers are charged on a true per-second basis in a way that calls are charged at 6c per 5 minutes during peak hours, per 10 minutes during off-peak and per 30 minutes during night/weekend rate. This might sound more expensive than the standard 5.39c pulse, however, this is charged per second. So, while a 1 minute call with Maltacom would cost 5.39c, with iPhone it would cost 1.2c during peak times. In other words, this is great for short calls.
Meanwhile, we'll have to see where this price war ends. Hello's rent is a bit expensive at Lm2.95 monthly. It's true - the rent is free for OnVol cable Internet customers, but those may not be enough. Also, we were told that Hello are not charging on a true per-second basis, but in chunks of 30 seconds, making iPhone potentially slightly cheaper in some cases.
|
| Last Updated ( Friday, 01 December 2006 ) |
|
|
| December: Month in review
|
|
|
|
| Written by HiVoltage |
Saturday, 23 December 2006
It's been quite a boring month regarding local IT market developments, but although we saw nothing quite new, we saw more bundling offers. Possibly one of the most interesting offers is the Vodafone - Melita @home package. With this offer, one can get a bundle consisting of Melita Connect (digital cable TV), OnVOL Lite, and a Vodafone post-paid plan which consists of a 3G mobile phone free of charge, 120 voice minutes monthly to Vodafone
numbers and fixed lines and 30 mobile video minutes monthly to Vodafone
numbers. This bundle costs Lm33/month, and is only available up till 15th January.
Maltacom has launched another bundled offer which is also available until 15th January. This offer gives Maltacom customers the chance to get any Multiplus package (including the Free+ package at Lm1/month) without having to pay anything for the receiver box. The monthly Multiplus fee is then included in the telephone bill. There is however one requirement - that whoever applies for this offer has to sign a 2-year contract, which is not really ideal for the customer when considering the current market volatility.
Although none of these offers might apply to you, and it is a fact that only a very small number of people would probably subscribe to them, it is still interesting to see the deals between different telecom operators that are going on.
One more thing that everyone already knew but is now official is that Go Mobile announced that starting from next Spring they will start offering 3G. Rewording that, it means that we won't be getting any 3G from Go Mobile for at least the next 3 months..
|
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 December 2006 ) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
