Man accused of stealing Melita TV service

Maybe someone should ask Melita how they get Living TV and Comedy Channel (Paramount)...... and back in the day.... Bravo TV.

The saying "People in glass houses ..... comes to mind.

the guy did what we are all supposed to do. at the prices they charge us we are all being ripped off. daylight robbery. good thing when somebody has the guts to get some back!! i just do not like like the fact that he is foreigner and doing it in my country, i find that arrogant and distasteful. if he does it in his country he will probably be hanged in a public square

@J.Abela.

Snap, Crackle and Pop should be left best for Rice Crispies. At the price we pay I expect that we get great service. Not good, or decent...but great. Sky Italia at 20Euro per month including HD decoder and installation...not bad eh?

Watching the Juve match on Tuesday, the picture was extremely bad. EXTREMELY bad. The resolution was incredibly bad and the refresh rate? Dear me...I assume you do know what I am talking about? Fairly bog-standard talk these days.

I totally agree with you regarding Melita HD transmissions mate. Nobody can give an answer to that. Typical Malta. Typical Malta.

As for Mr.Asrag's case...somebody must have snitched on him....Technically I think the laws must be made clear on this...too much of a grey area...

The Melita people should speak about the idea of when they were trying to force the people to have their sports channel at their home. When the mediaset had the rights for the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, and from Melita side were cutting the service so as I have to go and sign up for the sports channel...

Is it illegal to cut off a FREE TO AIR TV in order to buy your service????

@Charles Sammut

Are you sure the problem is not with your installation and/or tv? Personally i never experienced any of your allegations.. on the contrary sometimes Go transmission is even better than certain Free to Air satellite tv stations.

and btw: sarcasm did not give any weight to your argument. Enjoy the now-almost-absolete analague free tv..

Melita cable are a service provider of the past, now there are plenty more to choose from at a very competitive monthly fee, however anyone wil a dish can access hundreds of free movies, channels, and as someone mentioned below an intertnet connection and bob's your uncle.. free viewing. so why pay? and above all why bitch Melita unless you give a better service and a competitive rates, i honestly can't see your company lasting.

I can't see why he cannot use splitters in his own home if he is paying for the cable. Malta has to upgrade. In Canada we have a TV in every bedroom using a splitter. You are paying the cable, why not? we only pay for the cable, TV license do not exist here!! and by the way, NO you do not have to watch the same channel, how stupid is that idea!! Melita TV service is a rip off!!

With Dream multimedia connected true internet you can watch the World for few euros,not few channels and high rent.........

if u want some free tv and u have interenet connection at home just log on to this site
u find heaps of good channels- dont need to pay
http://freetubetv.net/

enjoy

@ J Abela

I suppose that you are also happy with the public transport and roads in Malta because you can still get from A to B. You were also happy with Deserta chocolate because it tasted and looked somewhat like chocolate as well.

You are happy because Go's picture does not crackle or distort. We can put up with muffled sound, dull and grainy picture. Thank god for little mercies.

Mediocrity reigns supreme.

@comments of Go's resolution.

I am neither a shareholder not an employee of Go. However i AM a subscriber. I cannot digest the comments regarding the alleged low resolution especially on HD TV's. I'm not saying they transmit at 720 or 1080P, however the picture IS very decent and does NOT crackle or get distorted.

Thing is last time I talked to a Melita employee at a managerial level, he claimed Melita was negotiating for HD transmissions. This was 2 summers ago.

Go employees at least had the decency to admit they knew nothing.

Now, regarding the splitting case maybe Asrag was giving the service at a price?

From what I read about Melita, services, the man is doing them a favour for paying them anything, What goes round , comes round, as the saying is.QED

There is a big distributiion box that Melita technicians attached to or facade ages ago. Much to our disappointment Melita technicians leave some litter behind every time they call for repairs on the said box. After such repairs we invariably find the tell-tale pieces of coaxial cable, and the clipped cable ties they leave behind. It would be highly appreciated if they could at least clean up in future. (?)

Such waste products should be recycled or disposed of properly. Melita technicians are setting a bad example in an eco-conscious age. One must remember that littering is illegal and punishable by law.

I think Melita should explain their subscribers how come the channels in their packages always decrease from time to time but their prices remains the same or increase.
And even the quality is not one of an EU country in 2010, standard although the prices are.

In Italy for example Sky Italia, the last package launched by this company last month was : A contract for 36 months & you'll get a 32" TV HD FREE, a decoder HD FREE too & more than 100 channels (True channels like various Movie ones dated 2008/2009, Sports, National Geographic, Nickelodeon ect.. not like the ones offered by Melita in their Reception package) for the price of € 19.99 monthly. Not to mention that they didn't know what even means the INSTALLATION FEE !!

Melita is lucky enough that sky haven't opened a subscribtion centre here in Malta cause I bet that all actual Melita subscribers will switch immediately.

Not only is Go's TV resolution absolute crap but the sound is abyssmal. I have to keep the TV volume on max to be able to hear it because the level coming out of the box is so low.

Can Melita cable check what they're stealing ? I used to have melita service at home but i noticed that they steal . One can watch 60% of melita stations for FREE TO AIR on satelite and this costs only 250 euros while a years melita service costs nearly 500 euros a year.

CAN SOMEONE STOP THEM !

Thats funny if it weren't for Melita's engineers i wouldn't have known how to split connections, so don't blame us Melita, blame your precious employees, besides i have now a satellite dish, and its FREE Viewing as most Maltese programmes are a load of crap anyway, its politics day in day out, even if i may add on xmas. day and all saints day its a never ending saga, or bad sound, so don't call us we'll call you sunshine. A Moaning British Resident! not for long. T.T.F.A.

It is very clear to me that Melta Cables board of directors have to get their act together.

Their accusations, at least in my eyes, appear to compare to the times when owning a cordless telephone or more recently when utilising IP telephony was considered illegal.

All the benefits of these technologies should be embrassed.

Well done melita for using your energy in taking to court a man who was not stealing anything instead of using your resources for providing a better service. My niece switched over to you because she is young and fell for your marketing tactics and she has not been able to send or receive sms for the past two weeks. She told me that your customer care ' promised to look into the matter'.

is this a joke? I'de say a good 75% of melita subscribers split the connection in their home.... and I'de say most times this is done by Melita contractors upon installation of service.

I am a Melita subscriber, but only because I choose the lesser of two evils. The quality is absolute rubbish (Go's is worse!). . Just watch anything you care to mention on an HD LCD TV. What is the resolution of the digital picture transmitted?

Now, I have one decoder with one TV. But if I needed another outlet in another room, you mean I would not be allowed to do it??. I can't watch both TVs at once can I ?

So in fact there would only be one transmission being used. No amount of insane reasoning can get me through that.... Internet service is allowed splitting, why not TV?

And let's be honest. The prices are ridiculously high. Watching Italia1 advertise their Hi-Def offering at low prices make me sick...and this in a country where wages are higher.

Although I agree I am not being forced to use Melita, this is nothing but legal bullying. What else can we football fans do except bow our heads and accept the inevitable prices?

grillomalta@gmail.com , in case Melita feels somebody with a modicum of IT knowledge send me mail.

Ebrahim is not guilty of sealing MELITA services.
Legally he can split to million rooms on the licence address.

BUT HE CANNOT CHARGE ANYONE IN THAT HOME.
ANY PROSECUTOR WHO BROUGHT HIM TO COURT ON BEHALF OF MELITA IS NAIVE.
SHOULD BEEN PROSECUTED FOR CHARGING THE INMATES.

@ V Caruana

The problem is that Melita enforces terms and conditions that are abusive and in certain cases illegal. They are lucky that the competition authority in Malta is hopeless, otherwise they would not be able to use abusive terms and conditions to operate in the market. Consumer rights are over terms and conditions

this is causing a lot of bad publicity for Melita and it sounds like a "GO" for me ......

In its terms and conditions Melita clearly states that " subscriber agrees not to connect more than one television set to any outlet installed by Melita". we know that they are here to grab our money!

I have experienced both the TV services of Melita and GO, and I can't stand either of them. The problem in this country is that there is limited choice available at the moment. Hence if one wants to see the Maltese channels the old analogue FTA is not much of an option from many parts of the island, hence one is forced to make use of these two providers. We know that the government will be upgrading this to DTV end of next year, what I do not understand is why wait till end of next year!! The only conclusion I arrive to is to protect the income of these two providers, since when the FREE DTV service would be available coupled with the already available DTV signal of the Italian channels, for general use (excluding premium channels/sports) that would be good enough. Hence substantial loss of revenue for these providers. Am I right??

@Jason Attard. Melita grabs you by the........... ANTENNAS

@Albert Dingli

Exactly!! You got the point. Disconnecting from Melita is a real, real challenge...and a expensive one too. Melita grabs you by the ....

This makes a change as if you end up at Mater Dei Hospital as a victim of circumstances the situation is reversed but the patients have no redress in any court of law !

@Joseph Mizzi
See Go's special offers and you will reliase that you will save and all this is promoted and not classified as illegal.
Re illegality : there is also a term called legalised crime.
Not all legislation is written with honest intent.

Negative propaganda never enticed my apetite for news.

I changed to another provider this afternoon, after hearing about this.

@T.Mifsud
@ Evelyn Cini
Publish the Melita Cable removal notice when you quit as Melita Cable customer!
Take the challenge both of you!

Yet another blog "Melita employees vs. the customers" Splitting your signal inside your own home is not illegal, regardless of what Melita says. Unfortunately Melita can get buy with these practices, their 15 month automatically renewed contract, the abusive penalties for cancelation and other illegal and abusive practices...and supposedly they came to bring more competition. What a shame.

I switched from Melita to Go, simply because Go, is offers a far better service and is much more affordable. We have never lost our tv programmes and have always been able to turn off our decoders. Melita is charging money for old rope.

One has to point out this... Melita Sports Serie A football games: Many of the matches transmitted live are with English commentary while in some cases of away games played by inter the commentary is the same voice as the person of inter channel thus taking the picture from one place and the commentary from another (inter channel). Melita Sports should have neutral commentaries English for Premiership and Italian commentary for Serie A... watching a serie A game with an English language commentary in my opinion does not make sense with no offense to English language and the same could be said if Italian commentary was used for Premiership games... paying 35 euros a month i think we deserve better service not to say that they are lucky to have the rights for important football matches otherwise....

Pace Balzan
I'm not a Melita customer, neither. I'm subscribed with Go. At home, I have three TV sets, and pay for three Go decoders. If somebody's suggesting that I have every right to have only one decoder for three TV sets, then it's either I'm naive, or else you're suggesting an illegality.

I will remove my Melita service after this report. I dare to say that half of the population have a splitter.

What good cause? Are you dreaming that Mr.Ebrahim el Asrag is 'hosting' these elderly people free of charge? Why don't you get a quote from Mr Ebrahim about the cost of hosting an elderly person in the home he is running? Please use your grey matter before you leap!
Allahares kont magistrat, sur J.Borg!

I just say that i WAS a melita customer and will never be again!

@Joseph Mizzi
At present I do not use any of Melita Cable's services.
Kindly advise as to what mistaken ideas you claim that I may be installing in peoples' minds.

This reminds me of a story I read when I was but a wee young fellow. Ah yes! Robin Hood. And in my opinion Melita is worse than the Sheriff of Nottingham. If I recall correctly, the Sheriff did not have the King's approval to do what he did while Melita does.

Aha, but Melita need to pay the providers of the programmes as well, so you cannot just decide to distribute a service, because it's not yours to begin with. It's like selling your neighbour's house instead of your own.

On the other hand, Melita has been charging for free-to-air channels, already paid for by foreign tax payers or advertisers. So does that mean that Melita will be paying back its customers?

If he's found 'guilty', he should be given a reward.

taste of its own medicine to Melita?

at least this act was for a good cause......if only Melita can say so as well!

Roll out the flashy advertising.....

@P Pace Balzan
Does your comment subtly imply that you're stealing from Melita too? I'm not saying you are, but sometimes, some comments are better left unsaid. They might help to conjure mistaken ideas in some people's minds.

This is an interesting case.
Presuming that he was paying for the service to the home and therefore had one decoding box. Splitting the outgoing signal from the decoding box would mean that every connected TV would have to be watching the same transmission.
In this case all it does is to help the old people living in the home to be able to see the programme without all having to crowd into one room where perhaps the sound would be too loud for some and not loud enough for others.
By my own reasoning, as long as there is no fiddling around with the decoding box, this is not stealing but common sense; you pay for the level of transmission which you then surely have a right to watch. I would not be surprised if many cable users as well as terrestrial signal users etc do exactly the same thing - say one TV in the front room, another in the kitchen, another in one or more bedrooms.

@Ernest Vella
Melita Cable use my front garden and the facade of my house without even giving me a cent in compensation.
I am even faced with numerous problems relating to rising damp.
Does Melita Cable have the guts to claim that someone is stealing?
The accused should have every right to use a splitter provided that the service is within the same building.
The most Melita Cable should do is stop providing the service.

modern technology catch these heroes...good job to Melita workers