After Vodafone's move to remove time-windows on mobile phone lines, Nationalist MEP candidate Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas has called on other telephony companies to do the same.

If she gets her way, those who rarely use their mobile phones, including many elderly people, will no longer have to top up their mobile phones with credit every couple of months to keep their lines active.

Vodafone Malta removed time-windows last week after a meeting with the candidate about the online campaign she launched in March on www.bantimewindows.org.

Speaking outside Vodafone Malta's Birkirkara branch yesterday, she urged other companies to do the same, while applauding Melita Mobile for having launched without the system.

She said the imposition of time windows was an "unjust" practice that negatively affected consumers and competition in the mobile phone telephony sector.

During these last weeks, her petition has been endorsed by over 1,000 people.

She said Vodafone adopted a system whereby anyone on their pre-paid tariff would only have to make one chargeable event a year in order not to lose any of their credit. She said she had sent letters to Vodafone and Melita congratulating them on their decision and also wrote to all other operators in Malta, namely Go Mobile, Red Touch and Bay Mobile, calling on them to follow suit.

When contacted, a spokesman for Go said the company was considering various options for Go Mobile but a new mobile service it had just launched, MTV Mobile, had no time-window.