PAGENET TO LOOK FOR AGENCY NEXT YEAR
By Adnews Staff
PageNet Canada of Toronto has expanded its coverage and may look for an agency next year to help promote its services, president Garry Fitzgerald told Adnews yesterday. Currently the company is just selling directly to businesses and doing a little direct mail, handled in-house. When the paging company does begin to advertise, the account will initially be kept in-house, but as advertising is increased the company will likely look for an agency. PageNet may also look at marketing alliances with other companies. In the U.S. it has marketing partnerships with Sprint and MCI Communications. Earlier this month, PageNet expanded its coverage to include North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay, all in Ontario, as well as Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina. In October, coverage will expand to include Maniwaki, Que., Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John's. PageNet was already in Ontario and Quebec, offering service from Windsor to east of Quebec City, and in B.C., offering service in Victoria and Vancouver. PageNet offers a full range of products including local, regional and Canada-wide paging services, along with other services such as voice mail. The company began offering its services in Canada in April. It is a subsidiary of the Paging Network of Plano, Texas. PageNet Canada is a joint venture between Madison Venture Corp. of Vancouver and the Paging Network. The duo created a holding company called Madison Telecommunications, in which Canadian interests control two-thirds of the voting shares. Under the deal, Madison has voting control and PageNet will have a majority financial interest. The deal was set up in this way because Industry Canada regulations restrict foreign ownership of telecommunications companies.