When Melanie Montebello, Business Account Executive at Melita Business, attended ICE Barcelona 2026, her focus was to listen carefully to what the industry is saying and bring those insights back to her clients.
“In my role at Melita Business, I work closely with clients operating in fast-paced, high-availability environments,” Melanie says. “ICE Barcelona gave me the chance to sense-check what we’re hearing every day and to understand how those needs are continuing to evolve.”
Rather than looking for the next big headline, the value for Melanie was in the conversations with operators, technology partners and industry peers – all facing similar pressures.
The same challenges, everywhere you looked
Held between 19 and 21 January 2026 at Fira Barcelona Gran Via, ICE Barcelona brought together gaming professionals and solution providers from across the world. Over three busy days, the message was strikingly consistent.
“What really stood out was how often the same topics came up,” Melanie explains. “Resilience, uptime, scalability and responsiveness. For industries like gaming and fintech, downtime simply isn’t something you can afford anymore.”
No matter the size of the business or the market it operated in, the expectations were the same – systems must work, all the time, and they must be able to grow without disruption.
Where Melita Business fits in
For Melanie, these discussions felt very familiar.
“These are exactly the challenges we deal with every day at Melita Business,” she says. “Through dedicated fibre, hosting, redundancy and disaster recovery solutions, we help clients build environments where reliability isn’t a bonus; it’s a given. ICE really confirmed that what we offer is totally aligned with what businesses need right now.”
Another recurring theme was simplification. Businesses want fewer moving parts and fewer providers to manage.
“Companies are looking for reliability without unnecessary layers,” Melanie notes. “They want one trusted partner who understands their environment and can support them as they scale.”
This is where Melita Business’s integrated approach stands out – combining connectivity, infrastructure and local expertise in a way that makes life easier for clients, not harder.
Malta’s role in the gaming ecosystem
The conversations in Barcelona also highlighted why Malta continues to be such an important base for the iGaming industry. Beyond the lifestyle and location, it’s the infrastructure that really matters.
Thanks to sustained investment, Melita Business operates two fully redundant, state-of-the-art data centres, offering high-capacity connectivity via Milan and Frankfurt, as well as dedicated fibre connectivity across the Maltese Islands. Nationwide gigabit internet, 4.5G coverage and NB-IoT – capabilities unique at a national level – mean Malta now has one of the strongest networks in Europe.
For gaming operators, this isn’t just a technical detail. It’s what allows them to operate with confidence, meet regulatory expectations and plan for growth.
Bringing the conversations back home
“For me, ICE was about listening,” she says. “It helped me go back to clients with better questions and more relevant conversations, not generic pitches. And while the set up and organisation were impressive, the real value was in the discussions.”
By staying close to the industry and continuing to invest in its infrastructure, Melita Business positions itself as a partner that understands the realities of always-on industries, allowing businesses to focus on growth, while the technology quietly does its job in the background.