Reacting to the Malta Communications Authority’s decision regarding the company’s tariff re-balancing exercise, Mr Portelli said the tariffs, which will be introduced on 1 June, are the same ones which were discussed. He said the new tariffs did not come over the company like a cold shower but have been the topic of

discussion for several months.

He said the last changes to Maltacom’s tariffs took place in October 1993 – just under 11 years ago. He added that this was not a

tariff increase but that of tariff re-

balancing.

He said Maltacom was considering appealing the decision taken by the MCA with regard to the Voice over Internet service (VoIP). Since the introduction of VoIP in January, the company lost 27 per cent of the revenue it usually generates through international calls. When asked for a figure, Mr Portelli said that in 15 months, the company lost around Lm2.4 million.

“We never agreed with how the VoIP service was introduced. In all European countries, VoIP was introduced after the tariff re-balancing exercise had been undertaken. In Malta we did exactly the opposite. The VoIP problem has to be addressed as soon as possible because Maltacom is losing a lot of money,” he said.

When asked, Mr Portelli said that VoIP operators were utilising Maltacom’s infrastructure without paying anything for providing the service with our investments. “VoIP operators have invested much less than what has been invested by the company over the years. They are practically using our network for free,” he said.

Asked what were, if any, the company’s options and whether they had already submitted them, Mr Portelli said that Maltacom’s options on how this problem could have been solved were all turned down.

Speaking on the changes being introduced, Maltacom chief executive officer Stephen Muscat explained that the telephone line rental, which increased from Lm25.92 to Lm30.78, is the lowest rate in Europe. This increase meant an extra 1c3 per day for telephone subscribers.

With regard to business rental, this is one of the lowest in Europe and compared well with that charged in other European countries.

Asked whether the changes to the evening calls would affect the subscribers who use the dial-up service to surf the internet, Mr Muscat said this was the case but added that the company had other services, such as websave, which could be used to save money. On the international calls, Mr Muscat said these have been reduced drastically, in some cases by over 75 per cent.