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BuddeComm’s latest Italy and Malta Annual Publication, profiles two contrasting and important telecom markets. Italy has Europe’s fourth largest market for telecommunications services, with a sophisticated mobile, broadband and digital TV presence. Although the small cable footprint is an anomaly in Europe, out of step with developments elsewhere, the rapidly growing fibre network is enviable, and provides Italians with some of the fastest broadband accesses on the continent. As a result, triple play services are well advanced, and the provision of IPTV, Video-on-Demand (VoD) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in 2006 and 2007 has a strong foundation on which to develop.Malta has Europe’s smallest telecom market. The country has been slow to liberalise certain market sectors, but fundamental changes undertaken in 2005 bode well for the coming years. At the end of 2005, the final steps were made to sell the government’s remaining share in Maltacom, providing the opportunity for the country’s first fixed-line competition. The enormous popularity of VoIP, particularly for international traffic, has significant implications for future fixed-service revenue. The regulator also issued the first 3G licences in late 2005, propelling the country’s mobile market into a new era. |