30 March - 5 April 2000

Maltacom finally announces ISDN service

by Franco Aloisio

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) has finally been launched on a nation-wide basis by Maltacom and has been made available to the general public as from yesterday.

Maltacom chairman Maurice Zarb Adami yesterday said that the Telecommunications Regulator last Friday evening granted the company the licence to launch ISDN. ISDN represents the next generation of telecommunications services.

Through ISDN, the same twisted pair copper telephone line that could traditionally carry only one voice, computer or fax transmission can now process multiple conversations at the same time through the same line. ISDN can handle also high quality production streams and permits also video-conferencing.

ISDN provides fast data transmission. In fact, a 20 megabit file takes almost about 12 minutes to transfer using a 28.8k modem. An ISDN line would drop this to 2.5 minutes.

To install a Dualstream ISDN, which effectively handles two telephone lines, the customer will have a network termination box installed at the customer's premises.

The connection between the customer and Maltacom will be delivered over a conventional telephone line.

If a customer subscribes to Multistream ISDN, which handles 30 telephone lines, customers will be delivered with two conventional telephone lines equipped with a pair of HDSL modems or via a fibre optic cable.

To install ISDN, customers will have to pay a rental fee of Lm54 every year, a Lm40 connection charge and normal telephone usage charges.

Mr Zarb Adami said Maltacom will be launching ADSL, an improved version of ISDN, next month.

However he explained that to do so, the fibre optic cable which connects Malta to the information superhighway has to be upgraded.

Until this week, ISDN was being offered on a trial basis. Customers can now contact Maltacom for ISDN to be installed.