21 - 27 December 2000

ISPs may contest validity of Legal Notice in court

by David Kelleher

The Internet Service Providers Action Committee may resort to the Courts to challenge a government legal notice published on Tuesday, The Malta Business Weekly has learnt.
Legal Notice 283 informed nine ISPs that the interconnection agreement they signed on 5 December was not valid and that the back-bone infrastructure they were connected to was not approved by the regulator.
However, the ISPs were studying what could be done to overturn the executive order. Contacted yesterday, the spokesman for the ISPs committee, David Thake, said that they were extremely disappointed with the new regulations and criticised the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Office of the Regulator.
“We are actively studying the new regulations and resorting to the courts to challenge the legal notice is highly possible. In fact, our legal team is evaluating our next move,” Mr Thake said.
He said the issue had to be looked at from a wider perspective and the regulations annulled the previous communications law which gave ISPs the right to request interconnection agreements.
“There was a process. If an ISP wanted an interconnection agreement, a request was made to the other ISP. If the latter asked for X liri, either the former ISP agreed or else the Regulator was asked to find a solution. Now, these regulations have allowed all interconnection agreements to be free of charge,” Mr Thake said.
He asked whether the other parties concerned in the dispute were aware that the government was going to publish the Legal Notice and so there was no need to make a formal interconnection request. Mr Thake also criticised the government for “giving in to the demands of a dominant company”.

“Our network has been nationalised and has been rendered without any value because an ISP is no longer allowed to charge an interconnection fee. The law was drawn up to suit VOL and MITTS,” Mr Thake said.
However, the Minister for Telecommunications, Censu Galea, denied that one company or another had “forced” the government to publish the notice.
“On the contrary. The government felt the need to take action after pressure from the local media to take action and diffuse a situation that was not acceptable,” Mr Galea told The Malta Business Weekly.
Mr Galea said that everyone had the right to challenge the legal notice through the proper channels, “however, we are sure the regulations were needed. There was no alternative”.
Asked what action will be taken if the ISPs do not follow the legal notice, Mr Galea said that due to technical reasons they would need some time to revert back to the old Internet Exchange. “The Regulator will ensure that if the situation remains the same after a reasonable time-frame, any action necessary to enforce the law will be taken,” Mr Galea said.
Less than 24 hours after the legal notice was published, Internet users were still facing problems especially when it came to receiving email. One corporate user said that an email sent at 11.44am arrived at 7pm.
Sources told The Malta Business Weekly that it should not take more than 48 hours to reconnect to the Malta Internet Exchange, the backbone that was used before the ISPs set up the new one.
The new regulations stipulate that the only Internet Exchange recognised by the Telecommunications Regulator is the Malta Internet Exchange or MIX which is managed by the Malta Internet Foundation. This foundation was set up by notarial deed on 8 June 1998 and located at the Computing Services Centre at the University of Malta.