Reaffirming its commitment to offer best in class communications services, at the best value, GO plc welcomes the recent clarifications published by the Malta Communications Authority [MCA] regarding the European Commission’s three reports on broadband quality, prices and coverage, and to subsequent articles about these reports in certain sections of the print media in Malta.

Commission’s Report ‘Broadband Internet Access Cost’ (BIAC) 2015

GO endorses MCA’s observation that competitive conditions in Malta have actually led to a consistent decline in prices paid by Maltese consumers for broadband services. This is confirmed in the European Commission’s own Report, which includes Malta amongst countries recording a drop in prices across all bands of broadband products.

Unfortunately, subsequent articles in certain sections of the media have focused on pricing of broadband products that are either no longer popular in the Maltese market, such as standalone broadband, or high value products that are still in their infancy and that will continue to decrease in price with more take-up, such as very high speed broadband.

Moreover, as correctly pointed out by the MCA, the Commission’s Report does not take sufficiently into account the limitless monthly download limits that an operator like GO offers across most of its broadband services. In fact, GO’s Triple play offers, are by far the most preferred by Maltese consumers.

Additionally, the Report measures prices based on the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) concept, not the actual prices being paid by Maltese consumers.
Commission’s Report ‘Quality of Broadband Services in the EU’

With regards to the Commission’s Report on the quality of broadband services in Malta, GO would like to clarify that the Commission’s Report refers exclusively to the network of one of its competitors, and not GO’s. In fact, not a single graph in the 188-page report refers to xDSL or FTTx measurements for GO.
Commission’s Report ‘Broadband Coverage in Europe 2014’

As stressed by the MCA itself, also worth noting are the Commission’s other Report about Malta’s impressively high levels of broadband coverage compared with the rest of Europe.

The Commission’s Report highlights the fact that ‘’in 2014, Malta was the only country to report virtually complete broadband coverage across the different technology combinations on both rural and national level.”  Comparative figures further demonstrate how Malta outperforms the EU average in almost all technologies.

Such coverage, even in a country as geographically compact as Malta, could only have been achieved through significant year-on-year investment by the telecom network operators in Malta and often at appreciable commercial risk.

A GO spokesperson said, ‘’GO is proud to be the biggest investor in the telecoms sector in Malta, with consistently high capital expenditure in fixed line and mobile telephony, broadband and television. Committed to Malta’s future, during these last 5 years alone, GO has invested over €100 million in its networks and services, putting it in the list of top investors overall in the Maltese economy.’’
‘’GO is still investing heavily in next generation networks: it will shortly be commercially launching the only 4G mobile service supported by a real fibre infrastructure and will continue expanding its cutting edge fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network that will have reached over 25,000 homes by the end of this year. This will deliver the highest broadband speeds and excellent dependability to the consumer. Thanks to this infrastructure, GO will ensure Malta retains its position among the very top EU Member States in terms of telecoms connectivity for the foreseeable future.’’

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