In this framework, Melita will offer unlimited data to its users at varying speeds. “The days of worrying about whether your internet data bundle is going to last until the end of the month are over. Thanks to Melita’s new plans, customers can now decide on a speed that matches their usage habits, and then enjoy endless data at a price that is unrivalled in Malta,” said Mireille Muscat, Head of Marketing at Melita Ltd.

“Going forward, Melita will continue to seek new ways to deliver its products in a way that meets, and exceeds our customers’ expectations. It is this approach which has enabled Melita to grow its mobile customer base to more than 150,000 subscriptions and inspires us to continue developing new ideas,” Ms Muscat added.

The three new mobile plans are called Surfer up to 3Mbps, Streamer up to 20Mbps and Racer up to 200Mbps.

The post Melita launches speed-focussed mobile plans first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Melita says that in the past three and half years it went through a “transitionary period”, during which it invested “heavily” in new processes, as well as training, to improve customer experience. Independent research reveals that customer satisfaction ratings at Melita have increased to an average of 8.9 out of 10, Melita says.

“In recent years there have been a lot of changes at Melita. During this time, I’ve been privileged to work across a number of departments, including sales, finance and human resources, before focussing on process improvement,” Ms Costa said.

“As the way people interact with Melita continues to change dramatically, particularly with the growth of digital channels, we have worked hard to improve our customers’ experience. I’m determined, together with my excellent team, to continue to deliver further improvements across all channels,” she added.

“There are few people who know Melita, and our customers, as well as Graziella,” said Melita CEO Harald Rösch.

“Having played a crucial role in helping us to significantly improve our customer experience in recent years, I am confident that, together with her team, she is best placed to deliver further improvements which meet, and exceed, our customers’ expectations,” the CEO added.

Digital channels are of increasing preference for customers contacting the company, Melita says. Recently Melita observed a 60% rise in customers opting for digital channels, such as the telco’s in-built chat or social media messaging.

The post Melita names new Head of Customer Experience first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“This partnership with the Edward de Bono Institute has been of great benefit for Melita, helping to inject new and creative ideas into our marketing strategy,” said Mireille Muscat, Head of Marketing at Melita. “This will help us to better communicate the benefits of using Melita’s infrastructure and products. We also hope that the experience will have given a useful practical insight to the students about what awaits them once their studies are completed,” she added.

“This initiative was a great experience for our students, giving them an opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge to a practical scenario. The Edward de Bono Institute is committed to building partnerships like this with the private sector as we firmly believe that these initiatives help both students and potential future employers to understand each other’s skills and requirements,” said Margaret Mangion, Senior Lecturer at the Edward de Bono Institute.

The post UM students pitch marketing ideas to Melita first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The eight volunteers of MissInTech are joined by Melita, providing connectivity and logistical support to the group’s workshops, as well as other activities which promote science to both girls and boys, according to the press statement.

Melita has worked for the last years with the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) and has been certified with the Equality Mark Certification, which the telco has held since its introduction in 2010, according to a statement sent to BM.

MissInTech, an NGO seeking to bridge the gender gap in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, was founded by women during their ICT university studies in 2016.

The organisation has held seven workshops centred around a particular theme each to help get and retain the attention of the participating 20-25 children.

“It’s a magical moment every time a child uses robots for the first time. When they realise that they are the ones making the robot interact in the way they want it to, they are always incredibly proud of themselves. We look forward to creating more magical moments like these through which we are also helping young girls and boys fall in love with science and technology,” said Rowena Chappell of MissInTech.

Further information on the upcoming workshop, as well as the work of the organisation, can be found on MissInTech’s Facebook page.

Europe-wide, four times more men pursue ICT-related studies than women, according to a 2018 study by the European Commission. As a more worrisome figure, the number of women taking up ICT-related higher education had been dropping since 2011, the EC study found.

The share of men working in the digital sector is 3.1 times bigger than the share of women, the EC study found, while the European economy’s productivity loses approximately €16.2b a year due to women leaving their digital jobs to become inactive.

The 2018 EC study also found that despite women-run startups showing more likelihood to grow into successful businesses, women participation in leadership and investment in the entrepreneurial digital sector had been on the decrease.

“Data trends and qualitative analysis suggest that gender inequality in the digital sphere is essentially a result of the persistence of strong unconscious biases about what is appropriate and what capacities each gender has, as well as about the technologies themselves which require a fundamental cultural change,” the summary of the EC study says.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The present story has been updated with information about Melita’s collaboration with the NCPE.

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Melita has been establishing a client base in the IoT sector, particularly in Malta, Italy and Germany, over the past few months. The firm provides services to businesses operating Europe-wide in sectors such as car-pooling and fleet management, waste management and digital health care.

In Malta, the availability of Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) coverage brings added advantages which extend the possibilities of IoT technology. These include being able to connect sensors deep underground in spaces like cellars or car parks or facilitating the use of sensors with very low energy consumption, resulting in a battery life of up to ten years.

“The great benefit of IoT is the efficiency gains it generates. For example, if the machines in a factory are connected, they will tell you when they need maintenance. This means that maintenance work will only happen when necessary, without the need for regular checks, enabling time and cost savings. Through such services, Melita is implementing its strategy to enable our customers to fully embrace the digital economy, now and in the future,” said Harald Rösch, CEO of Melita.

“Our plans and management portal are designed to be simple and transparent. We have carefully selected the essential features required to enable clients to manage their IoT business without adding the complexity of larger proprietary systems. Choosing the right plan and options is straight forward, and once a client is logged in to the portal the process is intuitive and therefore very easy to use,” added Malcolm Briffa, Director of Business Services at Melita.

Other uses of IoT, which could soon become commonplace, include intelligent traffic lights which adapt to live traffic conditions in order to improve the flow of vehicles, and irrigation systems which turn on and off when really required, reducing water waste and improving agricultural yields, according to Melita.

The post Melita launches M2M, IoT brand melita.io first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“Melita understands that business owners want the best possible value with the least hassle from their communications provider,” said Simon Baldacchino Barthet, Business Sales Senior Manager at Melita Limited.

“Business Stars is the ideal solution, a mobile plan that a customer can build according to the specific needs of his or her business, and which can be created through our website,” he added.

Melita says that its Business Stars package is “flexible” as it allows subscribers to change and add benefits to their mobile plan at any point throughout the period of their contract.

The post Melita launches Business Stars plans first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The Ministry of Education has awarded Melita with a contract to connect all government-owned education institutions with dedicated fibre as part of a managed network. Melita expects the upgrade — covering more than 100 institutions — to future-proof Malta’s public schools, enabling them to leverage current and new digital technologies by removing bottlenecks associated with bandwidth, according to a press statement sent to Business Malta.

The contract award follows a public call to telecommunications operators issued last year which was won by Melita. More than half the schools will be connected as from the beginning of 2019-2020 academic year, with the rest of the schools being enabled by January 2020.

Melita CEO Mr Rösch tagged the day as an important one for Melita for being chosen as the service provider for supporting more than a hundred schools. “It is not only an investment in the infrastructure but also an investment in the future of the country,” Mr Rösch said.

“This project is important for Melita, not because of its scale but most importantly because of the impact, it will have on our children’s education. The new network will, in fact, allow the technology team within the Ministry of Education to manage and deliver services to all sites seamlessly and more efficiently, helping to make both teaching and learning more engaging and rewarding. As a forward-looking organisation which takes inspiration from the needs of our customers to invest in the right infrastructure to connect them to the services they need, being awarded this contract is very satisfying,” Mr Rösch added.

“As a small island in the big world, connectivity has always been crucial,” education minister Evarist Bartolo said. The minister also elaborated on the fact that traditionally speaking, maritime and aerospace connectivity has been important for Malta, being an island. However, as today sees immense digitalisation activities, internet connectivity is becoming more important than ever.

The minister also said that his ministry looks forward to further collaboration with Melita to enhance connectivity for both education and employment.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Business Malta’s morning report from the event has been updated with further details carried by the official press release issued in the afternoon. The cover picture of the article has also been changed to a photo of the Melita CEO speaking at the event.

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The parties have agreed not to disclose financial details of the transaction. The proposed transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals. Clifford Chance and Ganado Advocates acted as legal advisors to EQT Infrastructure.

EQT Infrastructure says it intends to support Melita’s growth by further upgrading its fixed and mobile networks and opening an additional data centre location on Malta. It will also support Melita’s internationalisation strategy including its expansion in Italy as well as its innovative IoT connectivity proposition.

“This transaction is another proof of our success over the last years, built on the hard work from all employees and support from our owners,” said Harald Rösch, CEO of Melita.

“Thanks to our customers’ continued loyalty and increased trust we have positioned Melita as a telecom market leader in Malta in terms of innovation, technology and customer satisfaction. With the backing of EQT Infrastructure and their extensive experience in our industry, we will continue the journey by developing our networks and providing outstanding customer experience in the years to come. Melita is ideally positioned to grow in the Maltese telecom market and beyond,” the CEO added.

“EQT has been built on a passion for developing companies. We invest in good companies across the globe with the aim of turning them not only into great companies but also sustainable ones,” said Ulrich Köllensperger, Partner at EQT Partners and Investment Advisor to EQT Infrastructure IV.

“This is exactly the formula we aim to apply to Melita, which is already an innovator in the Maltese market and beyond in terms of infrastructure, products and customer service. As a result, we are confident that the coming months and years will be exciting and rewarding both for Melita’s employees and for its customers,” Mr Köllensperger added.

“We are very proud of the journey achieved by Melita over those last three years. Under the leadership of Harald, Melita has heavily invested in its network and its digital transformation to become a world-class operator. We congratulate Harald and the whole Melita team for the amazing work they have achieved that also benefits the whole Maltese community,” said Thomas de Villeneuve, Partner at Apax Partners.

“We have enjoyed working with Apax Partners and Melita’s dedicated management team to build a leading telecom service provider in Malta. A company that every day again tries to serve its customers in the best possible way by using the latest available technologies,” said Duco Sickinghe, Managing Partner at Fortino Capital Partners.

EDITORIAL NOTE: The present story was updated with the comments of Thomas de Villeneuve and Duco Sickinghe, accompanied by changing the cover picture.

The post EQT to buy Maltese telco Melita from Apax and Fortino first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“The subscriber growth results are very positive especially when considering Melita was the third operator in the Maltese market. We are grateful to our customers for their loyalty and support. Melita’s success in attracting a growing number of mobile customers is the result of a focused effort to provide the best possible customer experience and value for money,” said Harald Roesch, CEO at Melita Limited.

Melita believes that the launch of mobile plans offering unlimited data supported its subscriber growth by 16% in 2018.

“Among other initiatives, major investment went into a brand new — and Malta’s only — 5G ready mobile network, as well as a significant increase in mobile roaming agreements that provide access to customers to faster and cheaper roaming experience,” the CEO added.

The post Melita subscriber numbers to reach record 140,000 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“This is a historic milestone for Melita and for Malta. After being the first to roll out a 5G-ready mobile network last December, we have now achieved another first, delivering gigabit internet nationwide,” said Harald Roesch, CEO of Melita Ltd.

“Our ongoing investments in infrastructure continue to ensure Malta retains its position as one of the best-connected countries in the world, while also future-proofing our network for the coming Internet of Things (IoT) era,” he added.

Melita says that its latest upgrade comes as an answer to increased demand for data from homes and businesses, which is boosted by more devices being connected to the internet.


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