Historical Notes
about
Sprint Canada
(Telephone Company)




Sprint Canada supplies Long Distance Services, in Nova Scotia and most of Canada, in competition with other long distance telephone companies.



Sprint Canada
long distance rates
for telephone calls originating in
Nova Scotia

24 hours a day, 7 days a week

May 1998

These rates are per minute
See notes below

Destination
Country		 New
Rate
2 Feb
1998		 New
Rate
24 June
1997		 Old
Rate,
before
June
1997
Note 4 Note 3 Note 2
Canada 15¢ 15¢
U.S.A 22¢ 22¢
Argentina $1.47
Australia 54¢ 55¢ 60¢
Brazil 96¢
Bulgaria $1.49
C.I.S. $1.35 $1.36 $1.53
Chile 96¢
China $1.19 $1.57 $1.74
Croatia $1.13
Czech Republic $1.02
Denmark 56¢ 61¢
Egypt $1.22 $1.23 $1.26
El Salvador $1.00
Fiji $1.20
France 44¢ 45¢ 49¢
Germany 48¢ 49¢ 65¢
Ghana 98¢
Greece 90¢ 91¢ 97¢
Guyana 71¢
Hong Kong 39¢ 46¢ 57¢
India 79¢ 89¢ 97¢
Iran $1.93 $1.94 $1.99
Israel $1.13
Italy 53¢ 71¢ 77¢
Jamaica 88¢
Japan 74¢ 75¢ 82¢
Lebanon $1.30
Malaysia $1.02
Mexico 90¢ 91¢ 99¢
Morocco 95¢
Netherlands 44¢ 48¢
New Zealand 59¢ 64¢
Pakistan $1.33 $1.34 $1.39
Peru 98¢
Phillipines 79¢ 88¢ 96¢
Poland 75¢ 85¢ 91¢
Portugal 81¢ 82¢ 86¢
Romania $1.25 $1.26 $1.39
Saudi Arabia $1.67 $1.68 $1.71
Singapore 71¢
South Africa 91¢
South Korea 98¢ 99¢ $1.05
Sri Lanka 79¢
Switzerland 44¢ 48¢
Taiwan 56¢ 62¢ 70¢
Trinidad & Tobago 85¢
Ukraine $1.39
United Kingdom 28¢ 36¢ 40¢
Vietnam $1.37 $1.57 $1.65
Yugoslavia 97¢ 98¢ $1.08


Note 1: C.I.S. means Commonwealth of Independent States (the region formerly known as the Soviet Union — Russia being the largest of the states in the union).

Note 2: In applying these rates, the logged calling times were rounded up to the next highest whole minute, for billing purposes. For example, a call duration of six minutes and two seconds was billed as seven minutes.

Note 3: These long-distance telephone rates were per minute, effective 24 June 1997, and applied for direct-dialled long distance calls originating from homes (not businesses) in Nova Scotia (and many other locations in Canada) regardless of the time of day or day of week. A bill stuffer leaflet dated July 1997, enclosed with Sprint's bills during the summer of 1997, advertised these rates. In applying these rates, the logged calling times were rounded up to the next highest whole minute, for billing purposes. (This was not mentioned in the leaflet sent out in July 1997.) Customers of other telephone companies could transfer to Sprint Canada (to get these rates) by calling:
English: 1-800-708-7633
French 1-800-909-7633
Chinese 1-800-923-7633


Note 4: These rates were per minute, effective 2 February 1998, and applied for direct-dialled long distance calls originating from homes (not businesses) in Nova Scotia (or most anywhere else in Canada except British Columbia), regardless of the time of day or day of week ("any day, any time"). This rate schedule included "By-The-Second" billing — "after the first minute, you pay by the second." And there was another innovation: "Free Short Calls" — "Get an answering machine or a wrong number and you don't get charged if you hang up within ten seconds." No monthly minimums. No extra digits to dial. This information was advertised by Sprint in a flyer distributed in the Nova Scotia edition of The Globe and Mail on 13 May 1998, and the Provincial Edition of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald on 15 May 1998.



[The simplified rates, introduced in June 1997, were in response to surveys of telephone users, which tried to find out what people disliked most about telephone companies. One of the most common complaints was that phone company rates were far too complicated, with different rates depending on the time of day, also varying by weekday or Saturday or Sunday, and on top of those variations there were numerous special "plans" that offered varying percentage discounts for the one or two "most-called numbers" listed on each individual bill, or "family and friends" which offered fairly steep discounts but required both the originating and receiving numbers to have signed up with the same company, and on and on. In addition, because of competitive pressures, many long-distance telephone companies introduced changes in their rates at intervals of only a few months. And there were other variations which were less well-known, such as the method of rounding up the logged time for each call — most companies rounded all call durations up to the next highest whole minute (but did not mention this in their advertising), but a few companies advertised that their billed times were rounded up to the next highest tenth of a minute, and there was some talk about a few "rate plans" which billed calls on the actual call duration timed to the nearest second. Many users of long-distance services felt that it was far too difficult to try to figure out just which rate structure, or "plan", offered by which company, would be the best for their particular needs and usage patterns. In response to this complexity, Sprint introduced this plan, which charged just one rate per minute, regardless of time of day or day of week — the only variable in determining the billed cost per minute was the country in which the called telephone was located.]



Go To History of Telephone Companies in Nova Scotia
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Go To Home Page
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First uploaded to the WWW:   1998 May 16
Latest update:   2006 December 06