VALLETTA (WiMAX Day). The roll-out of WiMAX services for Vodafone in Malta is moving ahead of schedule, and rapidly winning the hearts of subscribers. Vodafone announced this week that it will launch WiMAX in the Maltese city of Gozo at the end of this month.

The Vodafone fixed WiMAX service sports the brand name @home, and provides subscribers with fixed line telephony, broadband Internet and mobile services.

With much fanfare, Vodafone Malta launched its WiMAX services in June. It was the first European GSM network operator to officially launch WiMAX using 3.5 GHz spectrum. “This is another important milestone for Vodafone,” said Hatem Dowidar, then CEO of Vodafone Malta.

Accelerated roll-out
When the service was first launched, Vodafone said it expected to offer WiMAX throughout the entire Mediterranean island of Malta by March 2008. Yet working with WiMAX equipment supplier Airspan to build its network, it appears the deployment well ahead of schedule.

“Vodafone is accelerating its BWA roll-out in order to ensure that customers can access Internet & fixed telephony service from various locations. We are confident that by the end of this year, Vodafone Malta will have nationwide coverage of its Vodafone @home service,” said Kurt Camilleri, Senior Manager – Bandwidth Business, at Vodafone Malta.

Given the investment that Vodafone has made to launch its network, it is also promoting it heavily. However one commentator noted that Vodafone need not promote the service so much on an island starving for broadband access.

For €13.86 EUR per month, the @home service provides subscribers with Internet access of 1Mbps, with 10 Gbytes of free downloads. An advanced service is offered to Vodafone subscribers for €23 EUR per month that has speeds of 2Mpbs.

According to a a company press release, “Vodafone Malta is also the first Vodafone operating company to commercially deploy fixed WiMAX to deliver broadband services to the home and business.”