Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

has been involved with the Internet since the latter's early days. The

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

(

ccTLD A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all ...

) for

is .mt and is sponsored by NIC Malta. The

.eu .eu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the European Union (EU). Launched on 7 December 2005, the domain is available for any person, company or organization based in the European Union. This was extended to the European Economic Are ...

domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states. Currently internet access is available to businesses and home users in various forms, including dial-up, cable, DSL, and wireless.

Dial-up

Dial-up Internet access was first introduced in Malta in the mid-1990s by various ISPs, including Keyworld, Video On-Line, Global Net, MaltaNet, and Waldonet. This narrowband service has been almost entirely replaced by the new broadband technologies, and is generally only used as a backup.

Broadband

Commercial availability of broadband Internet in

, through

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

and cable Internet, has existed since 2000, and is accessible from all areas of the island. Broadband connectivity has become very widespread on the island, with many households opting for a broadband connection. ADSL bandwidth is received mainly through the Seabone Network,

Interoute Interoute Communications Ltd was a privately held telecommunications company that operated large cloud service platforms in Europe. On 23 February 2018, Interoute was acquired by GTT Communications for $2.3bn (€1.9bn); and the acquisition clo ...

and

Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...

, operated by GO Plc and Epic, whilst there is another connection operated by Melita Plc The bandwidth is then sold to the various

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s which in turn sell it to customers. December 2005, DataStream merged with the ISP Maltanet, giving Maltanet a competitive edge over other ISPs. Both DataStream and Maltanet were subsidiaries of Maltacom, the national telephone company, which is now integrated into one company called GO. Cable Internet is offered by only one ISP, Melita Plc. Melita - Internet (formerly branded as OnVol) is a division of the cable and digital television provider, Melita Plc. Melita - Internet also offer standard ADSL connections for businesses. In Q3 2007 Vodafone launched a fixed WiMAX based offering for Internet access. This increased the competition in Malta. However, since Q2/Q3 of 2011, this has been discontinued due to unsatisfactory results with the reliability of the WiMAX system, and is no longer offered to new customers. As of 2019, Vodafone began offering home broadband packages, although these use GO's fibre network as a base. In 2010 Melita launched a service at 100Mbit/s, then the fastest in Malta. Melita also held the highest upload speed at the time with 4Mbit/s, which has today been matched mainly thanks to advances in telephone copper delivered internet through new technologies such as vDSL. Since 2016, GO has been installing fibre-optic cabling across Malta; as of 2019, more than 100,000 homes (approximately 50% of Malta and Gozo) were included in the network, with full nationwide coverage expected by 2024.

References

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