Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 30/01) - While the long distance market is now open to competition in the Northwest Territories, none of the big players -- such as Sprint Canada -- have arrived yet to challenge NorthwesTel's monopoly.

With NorthwesTel yet to offer residential international long-distance calling plans, a number of companies from outside the North have entered the Northwest Territories market with cheaper flat rate prepaid calling cards or phone cards for calls to outside Canada. - Merle Robillard/NNSL photo

While the NWT's small market may not yet be attractive to residential long-distance providers, the pent-up desire to call home is proving hot for marketers of prepaid, flat rate international phone cards.

Several companies are now offering prepaid calling cards with lower rates and a variety of calling plans.

Reg Treves, the special projects' coordinator for RSVP Communication Services Inc., says their company offers four different calling cards, with the most popular being the Rate Buster card.

The card offers North American long-distance at 19 cents per minute with a 50-cent connection fee.

Treves said this card is best used by people making calls that last at least seven minutes. For people making more frequent and shorter calls, RSVP has two other cards.

The Rate Buster can also be used for overseas calling, but the rates are slightly higher.

"The rates are very competitive," Treves said. "Nineteen cents a minute to the UK and 25 cents a minute to Germany and we reach 250 countries."

With the Worldwide Access card is a 60-minute card without connection fee. Treves said the card normally retails for about $7.

Two weeks ago, the company introduced the Fiddler's Northern Images card aimed at Northern customers. The card features aboriginal artwork and a flat rate of 33 cents per minute with no connection fee.

Toronto-based Telesonic Communications offers three different calling cards: Freedom, Premier and Rate Blaster cards. Customer service representative Scott Wilson says each card is designed for specific customer needs.

Their Rate Blaster card has the lowest per minute rate.

"It charges a cheap rate per minute, but it charges a pretty high connection fee," Wilson said. "It's meant more for making one or two long calls."

The Rate Blaster card offers calls at 2.9 cents per minute, but has a $1.29 connection fee.

The Premier card is 13.9 cents per minute with a 49-cent weekly maintenance fee, but has no connection fee.

The Freedom card charges $0.59 cents for the first minute and 9.9 cents for each minute after. The Freedom card also has a $0.49-cent weekly maintenance fee.

The maintenance fee is charged from when the card is activated until the time is used. Each card also has a six-month expiry date.

"From the first time you call, you start getting billed that $0.49-cent weekly maintenance fee, or in the Rate Blaster's case, the $0.99-cent monthly maintenance fee," Wilson said. "If you're keeping a card for longer and only making a couple of calls, you might want to use the Rate Blaster."

NorthwesTel offers cards with a flat rate of 50 cents per minute with no connection fee.

"We market it primarily as a tourist card," said NorthwesTel's director of marketing Curtis Shaw. "We have had Northern images on the card, animals, Northern scenes, and we had an Arctic Winter Games card a few years ago."

NorthwesTel will be offering new cards in September, with lower rates and various calling plans.

"We're looking at a couple of new products right now, one that will change the rates and a second which will have a lower per minute rate," said Shaw.

"A lot of southern company cards advertise 10 or 15 cents per minute but what they do to get that rate down is charge a connection fee," he said. "Our card is flat-rated, so there is no connection charge."