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.

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.

The post ‘Bats & Bots’ workshop to promote STEM for children first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Subscriptions in the fixed broadband segment were up by 5.8% to 191,833 by end of 2018, as take-up of fast broadband surged by 76% year-on-year, reaching 63,799, as compared to the preceding year.

This performance has led to a reported 4.4% increase in average revenue per user (ARPU) to €117.92 in the second half of 2018, as compared to €112.99 reported in the same period a year earlier.

Subscriber numbers for mobile telephone services grew by a slight 1.8% in year-on-year to 615,843 by the end of 2018. This figure is a telltale sign of a highly-saturated market, considering the estimated 460,000 population of Malta. Calculating with these figures, it puts mobile subscriptions at roughly 133% of the population.

In contrast, at the end of 2017, unique mobile subscriber numbers in Europe reached 465 million, equivalent to 85% of the population, according to figures by GSMA, which body represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting more than 750 operators with over 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem

In Malta, the number of mobile voice traffic minutes were up by 37.9% year-on-year to 619.1 million in the second half of 2018 (excluding roaming minutes).

Prepaid plans still dominated the segment by taking up 62.5% of all subscriptions, nevertheless losing some ground by 0.7%, while the postpaid sector was up by 6.6% year-on-year.

As demand for connectivity on the go is quickly growing, mobile data usage has been going up. Some 74% of all mobile telephone subscriptions accessed mobile data services, up by 1 percentage point year-on-year. Users consumed 3.2 million GBs of data in the second half of 2018, up by 0.8 million GBs (+30%) when compared to mobile data consumption recorded in the same period a year earlier.

Due to expanding mobile data usage, the revenue stream of local operators went up resulting in an ARPU of €92.40 in the second half of 2018, as compared to €88.86 in the second half of 2017.

Fixed telephone services losing popularity

Despite a year-on-year growth of 6.3% to 255,437 in subscription numbers in H2 2018 — which was chiefly fuelled by the service being offered in bundle packages — customer behaviour reveals that fixed telephone services play a less significant role in the end user’s life as voice minutes fell by 5.7%. National voice traffic volumes came to 203.8 million minutes, while internationally 8.4 million fixed-to-international (FTI) voice call minutes were recorded.

Nevertheless, television is an attraction force for the eyes of subscribers. “The pay-TV sector saw a 6.2% jump in subscriptions year-on-year, with a total of 165,289 subscriptions recorded at the end of the current reporting period. Bundling is also getting increasingly prevalent in this segment, with 72.2% of all pay-tv subscriptions being bundled with other services at the end of the year, which is up by 6.3 percentage points over a 12-month period,” the MCA report says.

“The increased take-up of premium content reinvigorated not only the subscriber base of the pay-TV segment but also the revenue streams of local operators. In fact, the ARPU for this sector was up by 2.2% from €44.27 at the end of 2017 to €45.23 at the end of 2018,” the MCA report adds.

As trends indicate increased online activities, mail volumes in the postal sector — albeit marginally — were down as compared to previous years. Single piece and bulk letter mail segments accounted for the registered drop, according to MCA figures. Although gains were noted for registered mail items and parcel mail segments, gains in the latter did not outweigh losses in the former seeing that total mail volume was down 0.2 million mail items or by 1.3%, MCA figures add.

As buying products have become increasingly quick and easy through our handheld smart devices, buyers are ever more likely to purchase goods from abroad. Therefore, the Malta Communication Authority (MCA) recently reminded of possible extra charges to be paid at the border when goods arrive outside the European Union.

The post Cheaper bundle packages lift telco subscriber numbers in Malta first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Business leaders have to make sure that they are connected to clients and partners around the clock. Effective communication is the very aspect that differentiates a firm that excels from its mediocre peers. However, this is only possible if the underlying technology supports the aspiring vision of the company.

At GO Business we provide services that can help companies move beyond connectivity and networking. In addition to our services, our dedicated and solution-driven team does its best to assist our partners, let it be equipment installation, the configuration of systems or offering ongoing support. With GO Business, we would like to be enablers, we want to see our partners improve and grow while utilising the technology we provide them with.

As GO Business, we are ready to cater for any need, from the most basic connectivity, through wireless-based technologies, up to maintaining complex fibre-based private networks that demand top-notch privacy and security levels.

Our clients can reach our B2B team any time through our website or the GO Business Centre well-located in Mosta’s PAMA Shopping Village. Our team is ready to provide to individual consultations, to offer customised solutions to any challenges or scenarios our clients might have

Through our ability to adjust to the needs of both smaller firms and large enterprises, accompanied by our market experience, the solutions we deliver are not only designed for today.

Keeping future scalability in mind, liaising with the client about their upcoming plans, we advise them so they will not only strive today but in tomorrow’s challenging world, too.

The managed services we offer at GO Business enable us to run the clients’ infrastructure on their behalf, with very special attention to system administration, data services, disaster recovery, cloud services and infrastructure management, just to mention a few. Managing all these aspects removes the hassle from the client’s daily schedule, and with this very peace of mind, they can focus all their energies on running their businesses to the best of their potential.

Nevertheless, when we talk about 24/7 connectivity and networks arching the whole globe, we must address the elephant in the room; the desperate need for elevated security. One single breach can be devastating for a business. As companies are moving toward digitalisation and through digitising their paper-based knowledge they are creating sensitive and confidential big data, the need for top-notch security has spiked.

Therefore, security is of utmost priority for us at GO Business, as we keep investing considerable resources in the continuous development of our security set up and know-how. Being at the core of our operations, we have won the trust of banks, international IT companies and also government entities, in addition to many other clients.

We do not only keep updating our own systems, but we also educate our clients about vulnerability threats, through consultation and support, as well as via taking precautions to protect all our clients and customers.

The present article has been written by Arthur Azzopardi, Chief Officer, GO Business at GO plc. With a rich background in the ICT and Telecommunications industry, Mr Azzopardi joined GO in 2006 as part of the team responsible for transforming the company. Over the years he went on to work in different senior roles and following the successful turnaround of GO’s wholesale business, he was recently appointed Chief Officer for GO Business.

The post GO Business caters for all your corporate communication needs first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“Earlier on, this afternoon, a subset of GO customers experienced a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that affected other IP traffic,” the statement sent to BM says. However, not all traffic on GO’s network was affected.

Degradation was experienced on both fixed and mobile broadband services for a short period of time. The degradation was managed due to mitigation measures kicking in to divert all traffic onto other redundant links, GO describes the events.

“GO is capable of recovering quickly due to its two submarine cables, multiple internet links and the robust DDoS mitigation system it has in place, all of which allow for full resiliency to be implemented,” the official statement sent to BM says.

The post GO ‘quickly recovers’ from DDoS causing brief technical hiccups first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

“At GO, we believe that the only way to future proof Malta and to be able to handle the phenomenal growth in data, is to invest in a state-of-the-art, fibre-to-the-home network. Simply put, a fibre network delivers data to you at the speed of light. There is nothing faster in science today. GO is the only company in Malta that delivers a true fibre network right up to your living room,” said Nikhil Patil, CEO of GO Plc, when announcing the investment.

Currently more than 85,000 homes in Malta are equipped with true-fibre technology. “We are working around the clock to expedite the rollout of true fibre so that every house and business can benefit from the best technology on the market. We expect at least 100,000 homes, the equivalent of approximately 50% of Malta and Gozo, to be covered by the end of 2019, with full nationwide coverage by 2024,” the CEO added.

“Communications services are the backbone of today’s thriving economy. They underpin every sector, every industry,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said when the investment was announced. “Our vision can only be attained if all stakeholders pull the same rope and harness every opportunity to push Malta forward. GO has a long-standing history in its contribution to Malta’s economy. Not only has GO taken these opportunities, but it is now creating opportunities for further growth,” the prime minister added

The post GO to invest €100m in Malta’s digital infrastructure first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The fixed broadband segment saw a year-on-year 6% rise in the number of subscriptions by the end of June 2018, with fast and ultra-fast connections speeding up by 26 percentage points to almost 72% of all fixed broadband subscriptions, MCA figures reveal. “The surge in demand for products supporting fast and ultra-fast download speeds underlines growth in the fixed broadband segment,” the MCA explains.

Bundle subscriptions dominated the market taking up 86% share of fixed broadband subscriptions by the end of June 2018. Over 86% of fixed broadband subscriptions were in a bundle at the end of the first half. Fixed broadband average revenue per user (ARPU) also shifted upwards as a result of several developments, including the steady rise in entry-level access fees and the increased demand for high-quality video content, according to the MCA. However, subscribers paid less per Mbit of download in H1 2018 than during the same period a year earlier.

Mobile world speaks up

Mobile subscriptions reached an outstanding 615,423 by the end of June 2018, a year-on-year growth of 2.4%. For a point of reference, the estimated total population of Malta and Gozo at the end of 2017 stood at 475,701, up by 3.3% when compared to 2016, according to statistics published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) of Malta in July 2018.

The contract segment saw a particularly robust take-up; the mobile subscriber base reached 35.4% by the end of June 2018. “This change reflects improved allowances with post-paid plans, which generally include bigger data caps and unlimited calls,” the MCA says.

Figures of the authority, however, show that end users are moving away from sending messages in their traditional sense (SMS) and fixed voice calling, as mobile data consumption is on the growth. Mobile data usage on a per user level jumped by 23.5% from an average of 5.1GB in the first half of 2017 to an average of 6.3GB in the first half of 2018, MCA says.

Bundles keep landlines and television alive

Fixed telephone subscriptions also registered an increase of more than 8,800 signups in the first half of 2018 over the same period of 2017. However, almost 70% of all the subscriptions occurred in the framework of bundle packages, and the actual usage of those lines are on a downslide as users move toward mobile services.

“The increase in fixed telephony subscriptions comes in the wake of operators’ generally incorporating fixed telephony services with all bundle packages. Despite the increased take-up, usage for this service continues to dwindle as end users switch to mobile telephony. In fact, during one year voice calls dropped by 7.0% and 5.5% respectively,” the MCA says.

The same tendency applies to the television sector. Although subscriptions were up by 9,326 to 161,697 by the end of the examined period, the MCA explains the growth with TV services becoming the part of bundles, similarly to landline phones. “Despite the increased take-up of this service, the ARPU for this segment continued to decline,” the MCA report says.

The full market review of the MCA is available for download at their official website.

The post Telco subscriber numbers grow in H1 2018 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.