![\"John_2003\"](\"http:\/\/www.worldline.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/John_2003.png\")
John Stix expects advertisers to foot the bill.<\/p>\nA little audio ‘spam’, marketing and the Internet are being combined to make free cross-Canada calling a reality within a year, Vito Pilieci writes.<\/p>\n
An Ontario businessman says it won’t be long before most Canadians can telephone each other as often and as long as they like — without paying long-distance charges.<\/p>\n
John Stix expects advertisers to foot the bill.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stix, co-founder of Total Free Call Inc. of Waterloo, has devised a system in which long-distance callers willing to listen to a 15-second commercial can make free, unlimited long-distance calls.<\/p>\n
The service is already running in Ottawa and parts of the Valley, and — if all goes according to plan — the majority of Canadians could have access to free long-distance by this time next year.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to create a hassle-free service,” Mr. Stix said. “There are no limits and you can call from any phone.”<\/p>\n
The Ottawa service, available at 688-FREE, dodges the quirky telephone barriers that separate municipalities in the valley.<\/p>\n
For example, a call between Jockvale and Osgoode is considered long-distance, although both communities can call Ottawa locally. But a Jockvale caller who dials Total Free’s Ottawa number and listens to an advertisement can connect to Osgoode via the Ottawa link.<\/p>\n
The Total Free network stretches as far north as Val-des-Bois in Quebec, as far south as Smiths Falls,east to St. Isidore de Prescott and west as Shawville.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stix, and his business partner, Jody Schnarr, started Total Free Call Inc. on Sept 1. A similar network is now being activated in Toronto.<\/p>\n
The two businessmen are not new to cutting long-distance bills: they co-founded Onlinetel Corp. in Kitchener, which has been offering free long-distance within Ontario on behalf of beer giant Labatt Breweries for more than a year.<\/p>\n
Mr. Stix says Total Free Call is setting up networks in other major cities across Canada, including Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax and Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
Once these networks are established, he can use the Internet to link them and bring free cross-country calling to more than 76 per cent of Canada’s population, he said.<\/p>\n
Lawrence Surtees, director of telecommunications and Internet-related research for IDC Canada, said the ad-driven business model has been successful in the United States and that it’s about time someone in Canada rolled out this type of system.<\/p>\n
“It has been running for years and years in the U.S.,” Mr. Surtees said. “Calls are already next to nothing.<\/p>\n
“The only way you could make a go of this today is pretty much by doing what they are doing.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Surtees said that after long-distance markets were opened up to competition in 1992, long-distance rates plunged.<\/p>\n
Today, discount telephone phone companies such as Yak Communications Inc. can buy a block of time wholesale from telephone companies, sell it for less than three cents a minute, and still make a profit.<\/p>\n
Mr. Surtees said Total Free Call works in a similar fashion, except that the company passes the costs of the time to the advertiser instead of the consumer.<\/p>\n
Bell Canada welcomed the idea, saying that Canadians already enjoy some of the lowest long-distance telephone rates in the world and a service such as Total Free Call simply offers consumers more alternatives when placing a call.<\/p>\n
“This is just a testament to the growing and intense competition that is going on in the long-distance market,” Bell spokesman Andrew Cole said. “That has been the case for a number of years and will be the case in the years to come.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Copyright \u00a02003\u00a0The Ottawa Citizen<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A little audio ‘spam’, marketing and the Internet are being combined to make free cross-Canada calling a reality within a year, Vito Pilieci writes. An Ontario businessman says it won’t be long before most Canadians can telephone each other as … Continue reading