By Times of Malta
A submarine fibre-optic cable linking Malta to Marseille in France would cost a maximum of €17 million – considerably less than anticipated, according to the executive chairman of the Malta Communications Authority Edward Woods.
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna announced the government’s plans to have a submarine fibre-optic link between Malta and Gozo and another one linking Malta’s backbone to Marseille, France, in the Budget for 2017.
Malta’s telecommunication providers GO and Melita already have submarine cables – but all three go to Sicily, which Dr Woods said was not ideal.
“We are connected to only one country, Italy, and if anything happened there, whether it was natural, accidental or anything else, we would be stranded,” he told The Business Observer.
The authority sought advice from foreign experts and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it would actually be cheaper than anticipated as there are numerous submarine cables from east to west to which Malta could connect.
