The Nationalist Party is advertising the mobile phone service it intends to offer, named Ping.

The party's Sunday paper, Il-Mument, has been running large adverts consisting solely of the slogan Pajjiżek Qed Isejjaħlek (the country is calling you) and a logo.

Ping enters a rather difficult market for newcomers. According to Malta Communications Authority statistics, Red Touch Fone, the Labour Party's mobile phone service, only had 1.3 per cent of the market by the second quarter of this year.

Bay Mobile, another company operating on similar lines as Red Touch, had started off with 849 customers in the fourth quarter of 2008, with numbers dwindling to almost half - 466 subscribers - by the end of its short-lived career. It had a mere 0.1 per cent of the mobile telephony market in June, when it folded.

When contacted, PN general secretary and Media.Link CEO Paul Borg Olivier declined to answer questions, saying that "any commercial decisions Media.Link Communications can take in the future towards its existing or new commercial operations will be communicated at the opportune time in the interests of the company and the nature of its business".

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