Here is an alternative for Canadians to cut down their cellphone costs: Starting this October, if they own an unlocked smartphone, they can have a basic package for only $10 a month thanks to a new wireless player preparing to enter the Canadian mobile landscape.
Speaking with Business Vancouver, CEO of Vancouver-based Teliphone Navigata-Westel Sandeep Panesar explained the new telco’s mission and plans to bring affordable wireless services to Canada.
To join the new carrier, Teliphone, customers will need to own an unlocked smartphone and run an app to gain access to calling, messaging, and data services over Wi-Fi. When they are outside Wi-Fi, their calls will be taken to Teliphone’s as yet unknown cellular partner, which will transfer them to its own cell tower.
Users can have multiple profiles on their device, each with different usernames, different phone numbers and voicemails. Several iPCS™ [ the Internet Personal Communication System, is a patent pending* Smartphone-Over-IP (SoIP) technology] users can share the same smartphone device. TeliPhone Mobile SIM cards are not tied to a specific subscriber or device so users can access their teliPhone Mobile service on any phone with a teliPhone Mobile SIM. Users simply insert any teliPhone Mobile SIM card into an unlocked Android or iOS-based smartphone to access their profile and the teliPhone Mobile network.
With teliPhone Mobile, subscribers also have complete choice when it comes to their phone number. They can choose a domestic phone number from any city in North America or a phone number from any of several countries currently available. And with the multiple profile ability, they can have a different city or country number for each profile all on the same device.
As industry experts interviewed by Business Vancouver have pointed out, what Teliphone is doing is essentially VoLTE (Voice Over LTE), but they are avoiding calling it by this name because they may end up doing things “slightly differently to achieve the same outcome”.
Teliphone’s patent-pending technology didn’t exist five years ago, which meant the only way to get into the wireless game was to build towers.
“Even six months ago, the regulatory space wasn’t right for something like this,” Panesar said, noting Ottawa has implemented more consumer-focused rules allowing smaller companies to run on the networks of larger providers.
To kick-start its wireless services and boost subscriber base, Teliphone has already sent its own SIM cards to print this month, and it will mail about a million units to wireless subscribers across Canada and the US by the end of the year.
Teliphone’s basic package, a $10 per month plan, gives subscribers access to unlimited SMS communication, 100 MB of data which can be used for voice communications, Internet connectivity and to send and receive picture and video messages (MMS).
