Article Excerpt:
TWST: We'd like to begin with a brief historical sketch of Phonetime and a picture of the things you are doing at the present time.Mr. Silver: Phonetime is about 11 and a half years old. We began this company basically on a kitchen table to sell prepaid long distance phone cards. About eight years ago, we went public on the Toronto Exchange and since then, we've grown the company steadily. In 2002, we were the third fastest-growing company in Canada and the following year, we actually were the sixth fastest growing company in Canada. One of our focuses over the past few years has been to transition our prepaid revenue base into a more rounded base of various telecommunications revenue. Today we have three divisions contributing significantly to Phonetime's growth. The phone card base continues to be a part of our core business, but over the years, we have built a significant Canadian network extending into 36 Canadian metropolitan areas covering 85% of Canada's population base. Last year we started a wholesale division, which went from zero minutes last January and has now grown to almost 1.2 million minutes average per day of traffic. The other part of our business that has grown, which was started two Junes ago, is a division called Call Select, where we directly market home long distance service to ethnic groups, what is called the 1+ service. We started with a call center in Vancouver and from a standing start 18 months ago, we now have a call center staff of nearly 75 people there. The revenues from that division alone have grown from zero to almost C$700,000 per month and we have a base of almost 25,000 home customers. So that's where we are today versus where we started 11 years ago.
Tickers included in this excerpt: PHD:TSX
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