Use of mobile phones, broadband still rising

Mobile phone penetration has shot up by a further nine per cent and broadband internet has reached 50 per cent of connections, according to the Malta Communications Authority, whose market review reflects a telecommunications sector that continues to boom.

The number of mobile telephony subscribers increased by more than 26,400 and traffic by around 3.6 million minutes between September 2004 and September 2005, the MCA's review of the third quarter of this year shows. This means that 81 per cent of the Maltese now own a mobile phone.

Europe's mobile phone market has shown consistent growth for several years to the extent that by the end of 2005, mobile phone penetration in the majority of EU countries approached or even exceeded 100 per cent. This is partly explained by the fact that several individuals choose to buy a different SIM card to travel, while others own two cards - one for personal use and the other for business.

At the end of September, the total number of internet subscriptions increased by three per cent, which translates to 22 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.

Broadband connections marked an impressive 43 per cent increase over the third quarter of 2004, a figure probably boosted by the increase in the cost of a dial-up connection. This was coupled by sizeable discounts on upfront costs for installation and modems for broadband service.

SMS traffic continued to increase, possibly due to the increased number of mobile phone users and the big difference in price between text message and voice call rates.

Text usage increased by 9.4 per cent, confirming Malta's status as the highest SMS user in Europe - the Maltese sent over 100 million text messages in the third quarter of this year.

The downward trend in fixed-line usage has continued with a drop of nine per cent between September 2004 and September 2005. This reduction may have been partly brought about by the increase in the cost of local calls during off-peak hours, the MCA said.

There was a decline of nine per cent, to around 150 million minutes, in fixed-line to fixed-line traffic. By comparison, mobile to mobile traffic rose to nearly 40 million minutes, an increase of 10 per cent.

The downward trend in international call rates boosted demand, peaking to 20 million minutes.

MMS traffic on the other hand plummeted, despite the number of MMS-enabled handsets. Among the reasons cited by the MCA are tariff and cost considerations.

Voice over Internet Protocol traffic increased to nearly 10 million minutes in the third quarter following the introduction of the 1021 and Hello services last July. Total international outgoing minutes increased by 13.8 per cent, while VoiP mobile minutes increased by 43 per cent. On the other hand, fixed-line volumes decreased by 19 per cent.

Turning to the cable TV market, the report says there were 99,917 subscribers at the end of September. A new operator entered the market in July, which may have contributed to the slight downward trend, of 2.5 per cent, in Melita Cable's subscribers.