Rogers Cantel Mobile Communications is targeting wireless phone holdouts with a new prepaid program called Pay-As-You-Go that aims to increase the penetration of cell phones in the consumer marketplace by making rentals easy and accessible.

‘Our goal is to get a cellular phone into the hands of people that maybe needed one, but felt it was too complicated or too restrictive,’ says Robert MacKenzie, vice-president of pcs and product development for Toronto-based Rogers Cantel.

By restrictive, MacKenzie means common rental hurdles like credit checks, activation fees and security deposits. Pay-As-You-Go eliminates all of that, he says, as well as signed contracts and monthly bills. Instead, anyone can now walk into a Cantel AT&T distributor, lay their money down and purchase a cell-phone package based on a prepaid phone card. The packages vary depending on the phone selected.

For example, a person can buy a Mitsubishi cell-phone package, which includes a 60-minute phone card, for $150. Once the card is used up, additional cards can be purchased for $25 for 60 minutes of air time.

If a customer needs more air time, he or she can purchase several phone cards at a time. Pressing the talk button on the phone lets users know how much time they have left on the calling card. Rates are 42 cents a minute in Canada at any time and 75 cents a minute from Canada to the u.s. at any time.

While MacKenzie admits the package isn’t the cheapest, he says it’s the easiest.

‘We think that for many users it will turn out to be the better value given that you pay for air time in advance and you control how much you spend,’ he adds.

To get the point across, an ad campaign promoting the new plan features an orangutan holding a cell phone and a prepaid card. Under the tag line ‘Really Simple Wireless’, the package is being advertised across seven Canadian markets including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, London, Ottawa and Montreal. While print and radio ads have began appearing in these markets already, tv spots are set to break this week. The entire campaign is set to run into the summer.

In July, the packages will be promoted across the rest of the country, promoting the Pay-As-You-Go package to 80% of the Canadian population, says MacKenzie.

Competitor Clearnet went to market earlier this year with a digital pcs package that promised no activation fee, no contract to sign and 100 minutes for $20 a month.