Melita, Malta’s third full service mobile operator, successfully completed a e40 million mobile network with the help of the multinational company Ericsson – a worldwide leader in mobile network technology. Melita will launch full nationwide mobile phone service on Sunday, 1 February.

Ericsson is a world-leading 3G supplier and its market share for GSM family, including WCDMA , is more than 40 per cent. Over 1,000 networks in more than 175 countries utilise Ericsson’s network equipment and 40 per cent of all mobile calls worldwide are made through Ericsson systems.

Ericsson’s Head of Market for South East Europe, Cesare Avenia, described the Melita Mobile project as “challenging” since Ericsson’s and Melita’s network engineers had to integrate a mobile services network into Melita’s already established and powerful fibre-optic cable platform. Melita Mobile is the first mobile operator in the world to integrate HSPA mobile broadband into a cable platform.

Mr Avenia travelled to Malta to address a joint press conference between Melita and Ericsson on the occasion of Ericsson’s successful completion of the Melita Mobile network.

The press conference held at Melita’s Control Centre in Madliena was also addressed by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications Dr Austin Gatt and Melita’s chief operations officer Stephen Wright.