CardCaller Canada is taking prepaid phone usage a step further with the launch this summer of its new prepaid cellular phones.

Charles Zwebner, president of CardCaller Canada, says he hasn’t hired an agency yet to help with the launch, but expects to choose one this summer.

The Toronto-based company, which has been distributing prepaid phone cards since 1992, will sell the phones, which are preloaded with 50 to 100 minutes of phone time, through some of the 3,000 retailer locations in its country-wide network.

Zwebner says AT&T Wireless has predicted that prepaid cellular service in the u.s. will be worth about us$500 million, and he expects the market in Canada to be about 6% of that.

‘In the u.s., it’s a huge market because they have millions of people that are immigrants, tourists, or low-income, that can’t get access to cellular, or even get access to a phone.

‘This is a way for them to get access.’

Zwebner says the phone will cost about $300.

The purchaser would then have to get a hookup with one of the regular cellular companies, but rather than using their networks for calls, the prepaid phone would automatically be routed to CardCaller’s switch.

Consumers will be able to reload the phones, with any amount of time they wish, at participating retailers.

Zwebner says he expects that prepaid disposable cellular phones, like disposable cameras, will be the next step.

He says currently there are Asian manufacturers looking at building $20 phones, and Zwebner says, once they’ve come down to the $20 or $30 level, they’re effectively disposable.

CardCaller also operates in the u.s. and the u.k. In 1995, it started CardCall in London, England, where it put its own switching equipment in place.

Earlier this year, it merged with u.s.-based DCI Telecom, a publicly traded technology and communications company.