MITA
Malta has been reconfirmed as the only EU member state that has complete broadband coverage across all three coverage combination categories on both national and rural level.
These results were published in the 'Broadband Coverage in Europe 2015 study' which explains that Malta's results were possible due to its small size, its highly dense population and its minimal rural population.
The report analysed different technologies and explained that Malta was the only country with full coverage of DSL, cable and WiMAX. Moreover, it refers to NGA coverage and reports that Malta has ensured connection through complete DOSCIS 3.0 coverage. It also lists VDSL networks which were passed to 75% of Maltese households in mid-2015. Another positive result was about FTTP, where there was a continued increase of these networks being passed to homes across the island.
As for LTE networks, the study explains that these were first launched in the end of 2013 and by then there was a continuous increase in coverage whereby June 2015 around three quarters of Maltese households were able to connect through this high-speed mobile technology. However, the report reveals that the level of households covered by LTE was still below EU average.
Through this study, the EU member States' progress in reaching objective broadband coverage is monitored, namely the 'Universal Broadband Coverage with speeds at least 20 Mbps by 2020' and 'Broadband Coverage of 50% of households with speeds at least 100 Mbps by 2020'. This report analyses information from 31 countries across Europe, namely the EU28, together with Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.