NEWS | Wednesday, 17 September 2008

Communication Breakdown: Operators lukewarm on new MCA rules

Charlot Zahra

Three weeks after the Malta Communications Authority (MCA) issued draft regulations aimed at ensuring continuous internet service in case of a fault, gateway providers have a lukewarm, or otherwise vague position on the new bill.
Business Today asked GO, Melita and Vodafone a number of questions, including whether they were now in a position to offer an uninterrupted service in the case of a fault in their international infrastructure, or whether they were ready to share infrastructure with competitors, as suggested by MCA.
A spokesperson for GO said the quad-play service provider supports the intentions behind the initiative but believes that “in general, the proposed measures can be better focused on providing the conditions and incentives for market players to offer the best in redundancy rather than taking a prescriptive approach. Every investor in communications networks and services has a vested interest in protecting its investments, which obviates the requirement for detailed prescriptive regulation that may paradoxically increase investment risks. In the international connectivity sphere, for example, this translates into an inherent incentive for operators and service providers to seek redundancy. The proposed measures should actually leverage and encourage this existing incentive, as suggested in our proposals sent to the MCA last Friday.”
“The obligation for gateway operators not to refuse requests for access unnecessarily coupled with the requirement for disclosure to the general public of redundancy facilities, which allows them to make informed choices, constitute the most effective regulatory measures with the least onerous and risky level of regulatory oversight. Such a system reproduces more closely normal market conditions with the least possible distortion, in that it promotes the existing incentives in the market
and allows customers to make informed choices based on differentiated levels of service. As a result of the incentives inbuilt in such measures, it will also be easy for the MCA to oversee compliance in this field.”
On its part, archrival telecoms company Melita was cautious in its initial comments.
Stephen Wright, Melita’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), told Business Today: “Melita is still evaluating the recently issued draft regulations published by the MCA and the implications thereof, and therefore it is premature to state our position on this matter.
“As a leading operator in this business, Melita strongly believes in having adequate business continuity plans in place to avoid the disruptions in service for its clients as witnessed recently following the fault developed in GO’s International connectivity.”
Referring to an incident last month, in which a fault was developed in GO’s submarine cable between Malta and Sicily, thus causing widespread disruption of Internet connectivity, voice and VOIP services for as long as 12 hours, Wright said: “Melita’s internet and telephony customers were practically unaffected by that incident.”
He said that following the incident, Melita’s corporate services department received a number of enquiries and direct orders for main and redundancy services on broadband and telephony, “mainly from major banking institutions, ITC companies and I-Gaming companies.”
He also announced that in the next few months, Melita would continue to develop its wholesale business for international connectivity through an investment of over €10 million whereby the company will have its own dedicated submarine cable linking Malta to the rest of the world.

“Melita is working with the competent authorities and hopes to obtain the necessary permits in the shortest possible timeframes,” the Melita COO told Business Today.
Equally vague was a spokesperson for Vodafone Malta Limited, who said that in its initial reaction that the company was “currently assessing the proposed guidelines by the MCA in relation to international connectivity.
“It shall provide the MCA with its comments and proposals in relation to the same in accordance with the established consultation process,” she said.
With regards to the recent connectivity incident, the Vodafone spokesperson said: “During the fault experienced on GO’s international gateway, Vodafone Malta’s operations were not effected. In fact, Vodafone bandwidth customers did not suffer any loss of service.”
In addition, on the day of the incident, “many GO customers came to us to be provisioned with the service,” she added.
“Vodafone Malta will be assessing this scenario in the light of the MCA’s proposed guidelines and will be commenting to the MCA on this aspect through the consultation process,” she told Business Today.

The draft regulations
The draft regulations state that “an international gateway operator shall at all times ensure the integrity, security and resiliency of the network elements utilised to provide international connectivity”, as well as “secure the availability of reserve capacity on alternative network elements sufficient to ensure an adequate level of uninterrupted international connectivity”.
An international gateway operator should not “unreasonably refuse the provision of capacity to another international gateway operator for the purposes of meeting the obligations established by this regulation”.
The MCA might, by directive, where it considers that its intervention is required for the proper implementation of the provisions of the regulations, specify the conditions to be met and, or issue guidelines in order to ensure compliance with the regulations.
Without prejudice to the generality of the previous provision, the MCA may in pursuance of its powers under the said sub-regulation “oblige an international gateway operator to establish the necessary contingency plans for the purpose of complying with the provisions of the regulations”.
Moreover, the MCA can oblige an international gateway operator to commission an independent audit “in order to assess the level of integrity, security and resiliency of the network elements concerned and compliance with any guidelines or conditions that the Authority may establish in terms of this regulation”.
Finally, in the event of failure or serious degradation of international connectivity “an international gateway operator shall notify the Authority immediately upon confirmation of the incident”.
The international gateway operator should also provide the MCA with “any information that the Authority may reasonably require in order to ensure that the international gateway operator has taken the necessary steps to restore normal international connectivity and in order to carry out any subsequent analysis or investigation of the incident”.

Lessons learnt
The MCA issued these draft regulations after on August 6, a fault in GO’s submarine cable between Malta and Sicily caused widespread disruption of Internet connectivity, voice and voice over IP (VOIP) services for 12 hours.
On its part, GO operated a contingency plan which consisted in the operation of a microwave link between Malta and Palermo and a satellite link to continue operating international voice telephony.
However, this arrangement was not enough to cope with the high Internet traffic, leading the MCA to intervene with Vodafone Malta, the other company which operates the other underwater cable between Malta and Sicily, to take up part of GO’s Internet traffic on its own cable.
Fortunately enough, Telecom Italia engineers managed to repair the fault on GO’s cable in Catania in time and by 7.15 pm on the same day, GO’s services were gradually restored to normal.
Speaking to sister paper Illum on 24 August, a spokesperson for the MCA had announced for the first time that it had prepared these regulations after talks with the operators to reach a voluntary agreement to share their international connectivity in case one of them developed a similar fault in its international infrastructure had not materialised.
“Unfortunately, the agreement has still not been reached. Therefore the Authority has prepared a set of draft regulations to impose obligations on the operators to implement the necessary measures in this respect,” the MCA spokesperson had said.
It had also said that GO’s current contingency plans in case of a fault in its international connection were “not enough to cope with the amount of international traffic, especially Internet, because in such cases, voice traffic takes priority.
“That’s why we want to strengthen the contingency plans in this respect,” the MCA spokesperson had insisted.
On its part, GO earlier this year announced that it was going to pass its second submarine cable between Malta and Sicily, which should be ready by the end of this year.
The cable will start from St Paul’s Bay and end in Palermo, and it will form part of the Inter-route network instead of Telecom Italia’s network as the current submarine cable.

[email protected]