The majority of local businesses are largely satisfied with their interaction with electronic communications service providers operating in Malta, according to the findings of a survey carried out by the Malta Communications Authority.

The Business Perceptions Survey found that a significant majority of interviewed companies having a subscription to fixed telephony (90%) as well as fixed broadband (86%) along with a significant proportion of businesses offering their employees with a mobile connection (41%). The general perception is that the services purchased are of a good quality and offered at a reasonable price.

 

Fixed Telephony

Fixed telephony remains a standard fixture for local businesses, with 90% of respondents reporting having such a connection at their premises. The majority of respondents (57%), confirmed having one active fixed telephony subscription. 31% reported having 2 to 4 active connections whilst 11% reported having 5 active connections or more.

The typical subscription is on a post-paid contract, with the number of respondents reporting such a connection rising by 22 percentage points since 2014 to 88% of businesses having a fixed line connection in place. An additional 3% of businesses reported having a PABX connection, which on many fronts resembles a post-paid connection but with additional features.

Take-up of fixed telephony in bundled subscriptions keeps rising, with 97% of respondents with a fixed telephony subscription reporting such an arrangement. This figure is up by 3 percentage points since 2012.

As for expenditure, 78% of respondents having a stand-alone fixed telephony subscription reported having spent less than €100 a month on their connection. 53% of businesses knowledgeable of their monthly expenditure on fixed telephony find this service to be reasonably priced.

 

Mobile Telephony

41% of businesses reporting having a mobile subscription say that they provide their employees with a mobile phone for business purposes. 44% of respondents with a mobile subscription reported having between 2 and 4 connections, which represents an increase of 12 percentage points over 2014.

Meanwhile, 39% of respondents with a mobile connection reported having only 1 connection. The remaining 17% of respondents with a mobile subscription purchase more than 5 mobile connections.

In this sector post-paid plans are again the most popular type of subscription, with 93% of respondents opting for such a connection, which representsan increase of 4 percentage points from the 2014 survey.

More businesses are also using mobile broadband services. 46% of respondents having a mobile subscription reported making regular use of this service for their business needs. Email is the most used application over mobile broadband, at 92% of respondents reporting usage of mobile broadband, followed by social media presence and website access at 74% and 58% respectively.

Over 90% of respondents having a mobile subscription, reported being satisfied with their service.

Meanwhile, 71% of respondents making use of a mobile connection (as a stand-alone), were able to identify their monthly expenditure on the service. Two-thirds of these reported a monthly expenditure of €100 or less.

 

Fixed Broadband

86% of all businesses reported having a fixed broadband connection at their place of work, an 11 percentage point increase when compared to 2014.

Results garnered from survey questions on fixed broadband show that 88% of respondents with a fixed broadband connection, comprising in their large majority small businesses, purchased standard off-the-shelf plans from their service providers and the remaining 12% are purchasing tailor-made plans.

84% of respondents with a fixed broadband connection reported having a single connection at their premises, whilst 13% reported having two or more connections.

With respect to contract term agreements, 24% of respondents with a fixed broadband connection reported being able to negotiate relevant terms and conditions.

As for the monthly expenditure involved in purchasing a stand-alone fixed broadband connection, only 34% of respondents knew their monthly expenditure on the service. The large majority of these reported spending less than €100 a month on the service. Less than half of these deemed such an expenditure to be reasonable.

Of significance is the satisfaction with the fixed broadband service, with 82% of respondents having such a service reporting a high degree of satisfaction.

 

Bundles

Businesses continue to show an increased propensity to purchase bundled subscriptions. 59% of businesses reported having a bundled subscription, an increase of 3 percentage points in comparison to the results achieved in the 2014 survey. An element of these respondents also reported having a stand-alone subscription in parallel to their bundled subscriptions.

Generally, 95% of respondents with a bundled subscription reported knowing their monthly expenditure. 65% of such respondents stated that their monthly expenditure was less than €100 a month, whilst 29% reported spending between €100 and €499 a month. Only 8% of respondents felt that their monthly expenditure was not reasonable.

 

Over-the-top services (OTTs)

Businesses are also making use of OTTs to conduct their operations. 81% of respondents making use of mobile broadband services reported having made use of OTTs, compared to 51% of respondents having a fixed broadband connection.

Chat is the most popular form of OTT followed by voice and video OTT services respectively.

Generally, respondents expressed a high level of satisfaction when making use of OTT services.

95% of respondents using OTT over mobile were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the service, slightly higher than the satisfaction rate expressed in the usage of OTT over fixed broadband.