The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) this week confirmed with Business Today its plans on investigating the six-hour disruption to quad-band telecoms provider Melita plc’s data, voice and internet protocol services last week.
“The MCA considers any disruption of service to be unsatisfactory,” the Authority’s spokesperson told this newspaper.
He explained how the MCA, earlier this year, “made available guidelines setting out the minimum essential measures required to safeguard the integrity and resiliency of the network elements utilised to provide international connectivity in support of continuity of service,” while he failed to explain in what areas, if any, the Authority felt that Melita was not complying with such guidelines.
“The Authority is currently in the process of taking steps to ensure that operators’ contingency plans have been revised in accordance with the guidelines,” the MCA spokesperson said.
Asked whether the MCA had asked for a revision of Melita’s contingency plans following Tuesday’s service interruptions, the official said: “The MCA will decide on any action that needs to be taken following completion of the incident review.”
Questioned on the issue of why the signing of the two redundancy agreements by Melita with GO and Vodafone respectively had taken so long despite the obligation existing under the Continuity of Service Regulations, one of the complaints made by Melita last week, the MCA spokesperson told Business Today: “Such agreements are subject to commercial negotiations between the operators.”
He added that the Authority would intervene “in the event that a formal request is made to resolve any dispute arising between operators in the course of such negotiations, however, to-date, no such requests have been made”.
Pressed about what effective steps had the MCA, as regulator of the telecoms’ business, taken to facilitate an agreement between the three operators, and whether the Authority was satisfied with the progress in the discussions between the three telecoms operators for the signing of the two redundancy agreements, the MCA spokesperson told Business Today: “The MCA has not received any request to intervene in such negotiations.”
Finally, asked whether the MCA would force GO and Vodafone to sign redundancy agreements with Melita in terms of the Continuity of Service Regulations this newspaper was told that the Authority would “take all necessary steps within its powers, in the event that any operator seeks the Authority’s intervention in securing the required agreements with other operators, in order to allow the operator to meet its obligations as set out in the Continuity of Service Regulations.
“Having said this, the Authority is disappointed when, in times of crisis, undertakings make statements which may hinder rather than facilitate progress on important matters where industry wide collaboration, is key to the industry’s collective success.”
