Long-distance rates among the lowest in canada
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 06/01) - Cell phone long-distance rates throughout the North have dropped to 20 cents a minute, making them among the lowest in Canada.
"Everybody always assumes that the rates are always cheaper in the south," says NMI's general manager Glenn Nicol.
Not any more. For $3 a month, customers can dial up anyone in Canada for the new 20-cent rate.
Calls to the U.S. will be 30 cents a minute. The new rates are good around the clock, seven days a week.
Nicol says the new rates are the lowest in Canada for analog networks, which NWT will continue to use for the foreseeable future.
Digital cell networks, offer lower airtime rates, but are only available in larger urban markets.
Nicol estimates half of Canadian cell phone users are still yakking on analog networks.
Until now, NMI customers were paying 45 cents a minute to call Edmonton and 48 cents to call Toronto.
He said when parent company NorthwesTel lowered its long distance rates, NMI decided to pass along some of the savings. Canada's broadcast regulator decided NorthwesTel's long-distance rates would drop, while local rates would rise, effective Jan. 1 of this year.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission also decided in November that any telephone service competitors in the North will have to pay a seven-cent-per-minute tariff on calls they originate or end in NorthwesTel areas.
The company serves NWT, Nunavut, Yukon and northern B.C.
A cellular competitor has set up shop in Inuvik.
Nicol said he expects about a dozen Yellowknife residents who pay 35 cents per long-distance minute to competitor Telus to switch over to his company.
Nicol will only say NMI has "thousands" of cell phone customers in the North. Northerners are slightly heavier users than the rest of Canadians when it comes to the time spent talking on their cell phones.
Cell phones sales growth has been "steady and progressive," Nicol said.
"Half of our customers are on the consumer side of the market and about half are business customers."
NMI is owned by NorthwesTel, a Bell Canada subsidiary. NMI is also a distributor of satellite phones.
Cellular service has been available in the North the past four and a half years.
