Toll Free Calling

Local calling area expansion for the City of Ottawa

Everyone within the City of Ottawa and surrounding areas can now call one another without incurring long distance charges. With the expansion of the Ottawa Local Calling Area (LCA), Ottawa’s residents and businesses are now able to place local calls to as many as 20 additional telephone number exchanges.

Since June 18, 2007, long distance charges are no longer applied to calls placed within the new Ottawa LCA (refer to map).

City of Ottawa New Local Calling Area

Toll-free calling across the city was a key priority identified at Ottawa’s Rural Summit in 2005, and it will provide many benefits to all residents and businesses.

This single toll-free calling area within the city and neighbouring telephone exchanges that cross Ottawa’s border will:

• Eliminate long-distance charges within Ottawa and allow residents in every corner of the city to stay in touch with friends and family across the whole region
• Ensure that rural villages and communities can call all other residents and businesses within the City without incurring long-distance charges
• Provide residents with greater access to business, government services and other community organizations throughout the region, and
• Help rural businesses expand their customer service area to all of Ottawa without incurring long-distance costs, giving them a more balanced competitive environment with businesses in the downtown core.

Bell Canada has helped to make this happen even though Bell and other providers offering service in the area will lose significant long-distance revenues in the longer term. To ease the transition for long-distance providers as the change comes into effect, Bell residential customers will pay 50 cents per month per line for three years (a total of about $18 per line), while businesses will pay 39 cents per month per line for three years (a total of about $14 per line). This fee will be collected by Bell and distributed to all participating long distance providers, as approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Likewise, non-Ottawa residents who are within a telephone exchange that crosses Ottawa’s border will enjoy the benefit of avoiding long-distance telephone charges when they call other Ottawa exchanges. Bell customers in these areas will also be subject to the temporary three-year surcharge.

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