Following a comprehensive techno-economic feasibility study carried out by Analysys Mason, the government of Malta has announced plans to roll out a national fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network.
The announcement came as the government issued a call for expressions of interest (EoI) in the roll-out of a next-generation broadband infrastructure that will provide ultra-fast broadband services across Malta and Gozo. The EoI is intended to lead to an open tender process in which the bidder that requires the lowest amount of aid will be the winner, subject to all other criteria being met.
Malta’s objective of having an ultra-fast broadband network is in line with the EU-wide target of having 100Mbit/s services available by 2020 and widely taken up across Europe.
The government of Malta called on Analysys Mason to carry out a technical and economic analysis of the proposed FTTH infrastructure, and engaged with a range of public- and private-sector stakeholders, including the regulator, ministries, government agencies, the telecoms operators and electricity and water utilities.
“These stakeholders contributed to an informed and balanced understanding of the Maltese market, the local processes for building a national FTTH network and the level of existing assets that could be used in its development,” explained Pat Kidney, Senior Manager at Analysys Mason.
Analysys Mason also surveyed a sample of exchange areas, and gathered data on local costs in order to ensure that our modelling accurately reflected the specific geography and topography of Malta.
“We then analysed a number of possible scenarios to understand which of them would best achieve the government’s objectives. The selected scenarios were used to build financial and economic models, and the outputs were captured in the study report,” stated Kidney.
Recognising the significant investment challenges associated with the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband networks, Kidney said that the government of Malta has signalled its intention to share some of the risks and incentivise investment through direct intervention. “Intervention by the government will aim to ensure that wholesale access to the network is available to all market players, in order to foster healthy retail competition. An appropriate range of wholesale products will therefore be required to enable service providers to differentiate themselves from each other,” Kidney explained.
The Government will consider suitable investment and operational models such as:
- A private design, build and operate model, with state funds or assets being made available to the private investor to assist in the deployment of the new network; in this model the government would have no role in the ownership or running of the network, but may impose obligations in return for the funding.
- A joint venture model, where the ownership of the network would be split between the government and the private sector; construction and operation of the network would be undertaken by the private sector.
The EOI is downloadable from the website of the Ministry for Investment, Transport and Infrastructure, at https://mitc.gov.mt/newsitem.aspx?newsid=2406