The agreement with Belgium’s Belgacom was signed by Vodafone Malta’s chief executive officer Joe Grioli and Belgacom’s International Carrier Services

vice-president Daniel Kurgan.

This agreement, which covers the transfer of voice and IP traffic, will enable Vodafone to send and receive voice calls to and from all destinations worldwide.

Vodafone will be routing its voice and data traffic through Belgacom’s points of presence around the world. In addition, Vodafone will shortly be providing international bandwidth services from which the whole Internet community will benefit.

“Following this agreement with Belgacom, Vodafone is now in a position to start offering a whole range of new communication services both in terms of voice and data traffic, including Internet bandwidth,” said Mr Grioli.

“Vodafone will continue to invest heavily in Malta’s communications infrastructure in order to give both the business community and individual customers the highest quality of services as can be expected from Vodafone,” he continued.

Belgacom, the first international carrier to be connected to Vodafone Malta’s international gateway, is a leading international carrier and a market leader in a number of areas including telephony, broadband data and Internet services.

The Company has over 5.2 million fixed line customers and 4.2 million active mobile customers, as well as 670,000 ADSL subscribers.

“Belgacom is very honoured to be the first international carrier to be selected by Vodafone Malta.

“This is for us a new recognition of our efforts to meet the international transport requirements of the mobile industry.

“For us, the installation of Malta’s second international gateway opens up a wealth of opportunities from which the entire Maltese economy stands to benefit.

“We look forward to working together with Vodafone to provide the best services to our new Maltese customers,” said Mr Kurgan. “Vodafone Malta’s gateway will provide a high quality and resilient voice and IP link to the rest of the world.

“We are confident that the Maltese economy will benefit from the additional growth potential from Internet-based services and from the potential for inward investment it will provide,” Mr Grioli concluded.