GO invests €7 million in television infrastructure since taking over Multiplus in 2007

Kay said this when Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi visited GO’s renovated head-end facilities in Maghtab, just a couple of weeks before GO launches its football broadcasts of the UK Premier League and the Italian Serie A after acquiring exclusive rights for the two popular leagues for the 2010-2014 football seasons and the 2010-2012 football seasons respectively.

Kay explained that GO’s television customer base had increased considerably from 7,000 subscribers in February 2007 to over 53,000 current subscribers.

Kay explained how GO had invested heavily in an upgraded sports playout facility since acquiring the football rights and would thus be able to broadcast up to six simultaneous games during every match day, with recording and playback of another four simultaneous feeds at the same time.

GO’s investment focused mainly on providing close to 100% DTTV coverage around Malta and Gozo with the upgrading of the Naxxar transmission tower and the installation of various repeaters across Malta and Gozo.

Moreover, the telecoms’ company installed a brand-new head-end at GO’s strategically-positioned premises at Maghtab, to replace the Multiplus head-end and transmission facilities at Portomaso.

The Maghtab premises has hosted GO’s international INTELSAT satellite link for international telephony for many years, which today serves as a backup.

The works at the Maghtab head-end included a new HD-ready playout system which allows the company to play out up to 6 simultaneous live feeds, while being able to receive and record a further four feeds for delayed playback.

In addition, GO recently introduced a state-of-the-art Media Control Room at its Maghtab headend that enabled the company’s television team to monitor and direct all transmissions effectively.

The facility has fully redundant power generators, uninterrupted power supplies, satellite antennas and video processing equipment that guaranteed the fastest recovery time in case of any fault.

During the visit, Kay also announced that GO was planning to invest €100 million over a six-year period starting from this year as part of its technology roadmap which would see it launching next generation networks such as fibre-to-the-home, mobile network upgrades and investments in its television infrastructure to cover new services and applications.

GO’s Chief Technical Officer Joseph Bugeja explained: “We have partnered with the best of breed TV equipment suppliers including Ericsson Television, Playbox TV and Harris which together with GO’s engineers and highly skilled technical team have managed to deliver this state of the art facility”.

On his part, GO’s Senior Manager Video and Network Operations Centres Kelvin Camenzuli said: “Our customers can rest assured that we have not spared any effort to ensure that the reliability and production quality of our sports channels is of world-class standard and without doubt it will open up the way to new quality standards on the Maltese Islands.”

During his visit, Gonzi, an avid Inter fan, launched the transmission of the Inter Channel, together with the Juventus Channel and the Roma Channel, three of the four Italian club channels that GO had acquired from Melita. GO said that Milan Channel would start broadcasting in the coming days.

GO today also launched GO stars, the first ever movie channel from GO, which will broadcast movies, series and other entertainment programmes. All GO television subscribers would be able to watch GO stars for one month.