Maltacom loses payphone dispute

Keyworld's One Voice service, which offers long distance calls at a low cost, will have to be made available from Maltacom's payphones after the Malta Communications Authority ruled that Maltacom did not have the right to disable the service.

A directive issued by the authority in yesterday's Government Gazette, for the purposes of the Telecommunications Act, determines that Maltacom contravened the regulations.

This decision has been long in coming. Keyworld had lodged a complaint with the authority in January after tourists and locals alike were barred from making long distance calls through One Voice on payphones.

Keyworld launched its service after the telecommunications sector was liberalised but Maltacom disabled access from public payphones to numbers starting with 2188.

One Voice provides customers with an account which allows them to make international phone calls via internet at a low cost from any fixed line, mobile phone or payphone by first dialling 2188 4773.

After access from payphones was disabled, Keyworld wrote to Maltacom asking whether this was a short-term or long-term decision.

It was informed that all the numbers starting with 2188 had been blocked as these were reserved for internet access.

Keyworld insisted that it had never been offered the opportunity to choose its access number and had never been advised by Maltacom that such a situation would ever arise.

After its investigations, the authority ruled that the numbering allocation and management was its own responsibility and considered Maltacom's actions as "unreasonable" and running counter to its obligations to make available telecommunications services.