Stratford & Kitchener: They’re practically touching!

It all started in Stratford, Ontario.

See, if you lived in Stratford, calling someone on the phone in Kitchener, the city just to the east, you were charged for long distance.

You could practically see the place, yet the phone company was going to ding you 40 cents a minute for calling right next door? That’s insane! That’s outrageous! That’s disgusting!

But for two local buddies, Jody Schnarr and John Stix, that was awesome!

They saw an opportunity that no one else had. They would cobble together some basic tech to  hook up the two communities, charge customers a flat fee, and allow them them talk all they wanted.

It was a win-win for sure. So what they did was knock on 700 doors in town and asked if anyone would be interested in a service that allowed them to talk to Kitchener all the live long day for a flat fee of only $10 a month.

Practically everyone said “yes,” so with that market research in hand, they spent all the money that had between them, about $15,000, on this new switching gear and their brand new phone business was born.

…and then precisely none of the 700 who said they would take it, took it.

Panicked, they spent the next two months “calling, begging,” and in the end, they had managed to sign up a grand total of 70 customers.

Which was enough to guarantee that they would go broke. Their monthly carrying costs were $1000 a month so it wasn’t looking too good, but then they came up with a new plan.

The “free” plan.

“We thought about getting someone to pay the $1000 monthly bill, to let everybody use it for free,” said Schnarr.

What they needed was an advertiser. They pitched local car dealer Gary Stockie with the simple concept: Anyone making a call would dial a custom branded number and after hearing a brief advertisement, they would be able to make a free long distance call.

Gary went for it, so Schnarr created an easy to remember phone number, 662-GARY, and launched their first PR campaign.

Next-day coverage in the local newspaper prompted 4000 people to use it that first day. “The town just went nuts. At the end of it, we had 8000 household using it a day,” said Stix.

John & Jody

Up, up and away in fact. This elegant “free” calling plan was quickly picked up by communities across the province, and then by companies like Labatt and the Toronto Star.

Flash forward to today and these two local guys, Schnarr is the CEO and Stix is the CMO, have built one of Canada’s largest coast to coast networks that supports over 300,000 customers a day. They have over 200 employees globally with their head office in Cambridge and two international offices located in Sofia, Bulgaria and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

Yet that concept of “free” is never far away. The concept that built the company goes into every product they offer today.

Be it all the free calling features or the free long distance for Worldline digital home phone customers, or the free unlimited bandwidth for High Speed Internet customers, it’s everywhere, and it will remain so in whatever they come up with next.

It’s a very non-traditional business model, and one that leaves many in the industry scratching their heads.

But for Jody & John, free works, and after all, it’s their company, they’re free do whatever they want.

Worldline’s Statement on CRTC’s DSL Ruling of February 21, 2013

One of Canada’s fastest growing CLECs welcomes this game changing decision

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO–(02/22/13)- The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced Thursday, February 21, it has established a standard billing model to set limits on how much the telecom incumbents may charge independent Internet providers such as Worldline.

Worldline will see “significant reductions” in the wholesale rates they pay as the CRTC ruled their monthly fee of $2,213 for 100 Mbps of capacity is to be cut by more than half to $1,036 per 100 Mbps.

Worldline, a leader in unlimited Internet service, who already offers the best value in the market, welcomes this ruling, and wonders what took the CRTC so long to realize that Canadians have been overcharged for their data for years:

“I feel this is a tremendous win for not only the independent phone and internet companies that deliver DSL service, but for the customer,” said Worldline Co-founder and CMO John Stix. “There is no doubt that this decision tips the scales as up until now cable internet providers have had a distinct advantage over DSL service providers.”

“I can speak for Worldline, that we will be looking to pass along the savings brought forth by this ruling to as many Canadians as possible.  Worldline has always stood for creating alternative services with unique value for our customers and we strive everyday to maintain this market leading philosophy.”

Coinciding with this landmark decision, Worldline will soon be announcing how they will pass these savings along to the Canadian marketplace.

About Worldline:
Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2013, Worldline provides affordable home phone, high speed internet and long distance services to hard working Canadians. With over 300,000 subscribers, Worldline is one of the fastest growing telecommunications companies in Canada.  Worldline is wholly owned and operated by Fibernetics Corp, a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC).  Website: worldline.ca Twitter: @worldlinecanada

About Fibernetics:
Headquartered in Cambridge Ontario, Fibernetics is dedicated to changing the way people communicate by offering telco functionality and pricing that Canadians have never seen before. Fibernetics has its own national infrastructure that delivers a full range of voice and data services for residential customers through Worldline and business clients with their Newt PBX and ANA solutions. Website: fibernetics.ca Twitter: @fibernetics

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