The Malta Communications Authority (MCA) has published a consultation document entitled "Interconnection Strategy for the Telecommunications Sector in Malta".

It addresses the call termination charges of the fixed incumbent operator Maltacom and the call termination charges of the mobile operators Vodafone and Go Malta.

The document relies on the principles of best-practice implementation of the Independent Regulators Group (IRG), and puts forward a "short term strategy" (benchmarking and re-examination of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) of the operators) and a "long term strategy" (introducing so-called glide-paths, and a switch from historic cost accounting to current cost-accounting) and contains a clear threat to introduce long-run incremental cost-accounting methodologies for both fixed and mobile call termination charges in case the call termination charges consistently remain significantly above EU averages.

The MCA specifies that "the applicability or otherwise of this strategy will be equally valid under both the current regulatory framework as well as the new regulatory framework, subject to the results of the market analysis and imposition of remedies where the principle of cost-orientation is invoked".

Interested parties are invited to comment on the consultation by 20 Aug 2004. Update: deadline was extended (on 3 Aug) to 14 Sep 2004.

The full text of the MCA consultation document can be accessed by clicking here.