'No strings attached'

Battaglia is the president and CEO of a small, Hamilton-based phone company called talkit.ca, which is offering a full year of home telephone service for $59.99, including unlimited long-distance calling across Canada.

Business manager

"I'm more of a business manager and my partners certainly know the phone industry very, very well and the technology side of it. It's a good team and we expect great things in the future."

Talkit.ca is one of a growing number of Canadian companies offering telephone service through the Internet, using so-called VoIP technology -- Voice over Internet Protocol.

The need to establish expensive infrastructure

Without the need to establish expensive infrastructure, VoIP phone service providers typically offer subscribers a cheaper alternative with a larger range of add-on features than the traditional phone companies such as Bell.

The adapter actually has two telephone jack spots, so subscribers who run a home business, for example, can purchase a second line for another $59.99 per year.

Very low rate because we want to grow market share

"We're offering it at a very low rate because we want to grow market share. We can do it at that price because we don't have a huge infrastructure like a lot of the other telephone providers do."

There are skeptics, however, including Jon Arnold, a Toronto-based telecom and VoIP expert who wondered aloud how talkit.ca can offer unlimited Canada-wide calling with so many features for such a low price.