Voip Payphones to be Installed in Toronto

CallCheap will be installing VOIP payphones in two Yorkville cafés mid November 2008. The unique business opportunity is that at a time when Bell Canada is getting out of the payphone business, CallCheap is stepping in. Bell Canada charges 50 cents for local calls only, plus hefty long distance charges. CallCheap will charge only 25 cents (Canadian or US coins) for a 5 minute call ANYWHERE in Canada & USA (except Alaska, Hawaii, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, & Yukon). Although the payphones are secure with a locked coin box, they will be located inside the café with a sign in the window. This makes the payphone clean and in good working order, compared to outside payphones.

The cost of installing the phone is offset by the presence of the Internet already in the café. No traditional phone lines to install and pay for on a monthly basis. The calls will be placed on the existing CallCheap network that expands across Canada & the USA. The central billing system will calculate the revenue split 50/50 between the café on a three year contract, with a minimum monthly guarantee. The café owner will have the key to the coin box, and remittance will be monthly on a credit card. The benefit to the café is the convenience to their clientele. They also may be able to call cheaper than using their cellphone. Or they may not have a cellphone. In the foreseeable future, many people may give up their cellphones and use payphones.

In early 2009, CallCheap will install payphones in bars, cafés, hotels, restaurants, and other establishments across Canada & the United States. Estimated 10,000 payphones will be installed over the next 2 years.

For more information, please contact us below or at 1-866-934-1668.

CallCheap Payphone

Free Municipal Wi-Fi Cities

Aparecida, BR; Auckland, NZ; Balanga City, PH; Bologna, IT; Bristol, UK; Clearwater Beach, FL; Fredericton, NB; Groningen, NL; Honolulu, HI; Kennesaw, GA; Lawrence, KS; Leiden, NL; Luxembourg, LU; Mexico City, Milpitas, CA; MX; Montreal, PQ; Mountainview, CA;  Norwich, UK; Oakland County, MI; Oulu, FI; Palo Alto, CA; Paris, FR; Philadelphia, PA;  Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; San Carlos, CA; Singapore, SG; Shawinigan, PQ; Spokane, WA; Sud Mennucci, BR; Taupo, NZ; Toronto, ON; Winston-Salem, NC; & Zrenjanin, RS.

Paid Municipal Wi-Fi Cities

Auckland, NZ; Boston, MA; Brookline, MA; Chandler, AZ; Corpus Christi, TX; Noida, IND; Hong Kong, HK; Luxor, ET; Madison, WI; Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis, MN; Moscow, RU; Pacifica, CA; Perth, AUS; Sharm el-Sheikh, ET; Singapore, SG; Taipei, TW; Tempe, AZ; Taupo, NZ; Toronto, ON; & Southaven, MS.

The Wi5 Business Opportunity

Municipal Wi-Fi networks became a race to see which city could out do the others with accolades by becoming “the first Free Wi-Fi Network in Canada,” like Fredericton, NB. These networks were planed a few years ago, when cellular data was slow, expensive, and required a cable hooked up between your cellphone and laptop computer. Business models were based on monthly fees or advertising pop-ups. Today, cellular data rates have caught up with 3G and EVDO offering broadband data. Laptop cards and keys replaced cables, and data rates are around $45 per month. Why would someone pay $29.99 for Toronto One Zone’s limited downtown coverage, when cellular gives nationwide coverage? Furthermore, cellular data offers more security than open Wi-Fi.

Most of the Municipal Wi-Fi networks are on hold, such as San Francisco. Advertising models didn’t work, and cellular data has caught up. These networks are run as community co-ops. All my reading on municipal networks, none mentions Wi-Fi phones.

The Wi5 business opportunity is to offer a cheap cellular like Wi-Fi phone that is a hybrid of a home phone and a cellular phone. Sort of a cordless phone you can use in your house and take on the road. If you walk outside your house with a traditional cordless phone, you probably won’t be able to make or receive a call further than 300 meters away. That is because the cordless phone is communicating with a base station in your house that is connected to a telephone line. A wi5 phone will connect to any Internet hot-spot that is open in the world, and will allow you to make or receive a call.

If the cellular companies charge $45 for the lowest plan, we’d charge a third or $14.99 per month for a local telephone number, voice mail, caller ID, 3-way calls & unlimited long distance calls anywhere in Canada or the USA. What is unique is the universality of the wi5 phone. A Snowbird vacationing in Florida can keep in touch with a Toronto phone number and call back to Canada. A family can send the wi5 phone to India, where the cost is 6 cents per minute to call. They can dial a local Toronto number and talk to their family in India. A businessman travelling abroad can avoid expensive cellular “roaming” charges by logging into the Wi-Fi hot-spot at the hotels, airports, buses (Greyhound’s BoltBus, Eurolines), taxis, trains (Via Rail, Eurostar, Virgin Rail), and even some airlines offer Wi-Fi (American, Delta, Lufthansa, & Virgin America).

What would be the “cellphone killer” is the meshing of Wi-Fi so that you’d be able to walk downtown and keep the conversation, as you walk between Wi-Fi nodes. There is a company in California offering for $499 mobile Wi-Fi in the car. Basically, using a cellular card, data is sent to the car and then it is converted to the Wi-Fi router.  Cars will become Wi-Fi enabled, 2 ton “BlackBerrys.” Allowing real-time gasoline prices for the next 100-500 miles; real-time road conditions; email reading; hotel room availability; intercom to home; Facebook on the seat back screens; Internet radio (watch out X-M Radio!); television; automatic payment of highway & city road tolls; emergency response, etc.

What needs to be done is that the wi5 phone is the saviour of the municipal Wi-Fi networks. A partnership needs to be established with the cities. They need the Wi-Fi network for security CCTV cameras, electronic parking meters, electronic parking tickets, delivering real time bus-stop information (when next bus arrives), and general data requirements. There is also a social obligation that no-one is left out of the “information age.”

Wi5 phones will be the low cost alternative to cellular phones. We will offer to promote the wi5 phone and the service on city Wi-Fi websites and offer a small fee for every sign-up. If we get 10,000 customers paying $2 per month, that would be $240,000 per year for the city. That is a sizable portion of an annual municipal Wi-Fi network’s budget.

Estimate 10,000 subscribers would achieve $1.5 million in sales and $150 per month in revenue. Valuation would be between $300 & $1,000 per subscriber, or $3 to $10 million.

Mobile Mesh Networking

Mobile mesh networking is a way to implement wireless mesh networks using mesh routing protocols. Mobile Mesh devices have the capability of receiving and routing data. Data packets will be transmitted from device to device using several hops. A typical application is mobile video surveillance with real time video being relayed from a moving vehicle to stationary receivers along the road.

Alternatively, mobile mesh networking can refer to a citywide wireless mesh network’s ability to support mobile applications, as is the case with the City of London’s Wi-Fi mesh network. In this case a network of Wi-Fi mesh nodes installed throughout the City enables users to experience uninterrupted access to the internet via Wi-Fi enabled devices as they travel through the City. Data packets are not transmitted from device to device in this case, but between the device and the network nodes. Source: Wikipedia.org

Why Cogeco Cable paid $75 million for One Zone?

Why did Montreal based Cogeco Cable (TSX: CCA), the second largest cable operator in Ontario & Quebec acquire Toronto Hydro Telecom’s One Zone?

Because, it was a political and strategic move being in Ted Roger’s backyard. Political because it gave cash strapped Toronto $75 million, that the Mayor used for new public housing initiatives. Strategic because Cogeco now has the infrastructure to offer next generation DSL services, IPTV, and possibly home phone service, in addition to the existing business clientele. The New unit will be renamed Cogeco Data Services Inc.

Actually, it is a steal. Since most 30 somethings live in the downtown core, Cogeco could be their choice for DSL, home phone and IPTV service.  Roger’s probably spent over $500 million building out their cable and cellular network in Toronto over the last 40 years.  Cable valuation in the United States at the height of the mid-90s was over $5,000 per subscriber. If Cogeco get 500,000 subscribers in Toronto, the cost is $150 each, and they don’t have to do costly installations.

A Phone that Ted Doesn’t Want You to See!

Wi5 Phone that looks like a cellphone.

 

Here is a phone that cable & cellphone Baron Ted Rogers doesn’t wan’t you to see. If the cellular companies charge $45 for their lowest plan, we’d charge a third or $14.99 per month for a local telephone number, voice mail, caller ID, 3-way calls & unlimited long distance calls anywhere in Canada & the USA. The retail cost is $149 for the Wi5 phone. No contract to sign.

Vonage charges $19.99 per month for 500 outgoing minutes a month anytime to anywhere in Canada, the U.S. and Puerto Rico. And then 4.9 cents for each additional minute. Requirements is to have high speed broadband Internet connection, a computer and adapter. Wi5 doesn’t require a computer or even broadband connection.

Wi5 Phone that you can take to the Moon!

 

 

 

 

If the Moon has Wi-Fi, you can call back to Canada & USA for $14.99 per month. Includes local number in over 2,500 cities in Canada & USA; voice mail; caller ID; 3-way calls & unlimited long distance calls anywhere in Canada or the USA. The retail cost is $149 for the Wi5 phone.