By Richard Blackwell
Globe and Mail Update

Rogers Communications Inc. has added residential long distance phone services to its bundles of cable television, Internet and cellular phone products.

The long-distance deal gives customers 1,000 minutes of calling time to anywhere in North America for $5 a month, but only if they sign up for two or more of Rogers’ other services.

That’s comparable to the long-distance discount that rival Bell Canada gives its bundled customers.

Rogers is using an outside supplier, which it won’t name, for the long-distance service. The company has plans to add full home telephone service next year using Internet-based technology.

(Bloomberg) Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s largest cable-television company, has started selling long- distance phone calling as part of a package of TV, Internet and wireless services to compete with its closest rival, BCE Inc.

Rogers is charging C$5 ($3.99) a month for 1,000 minutes of long distance, the Toronto-based company said on its Web site. BCE’s Bell Canada unit, Canada’s biggest telephone company, introduced a similar bundled long-distance plan in June.

Rogers and Bell Canada are competing for market share as the technologies for delivering high-speed Internet, phone service and TV converge. Rogers’ long-distance service, provided through a reseller, allows the company to enter the phone market before it introduces its own Internet-based calling service next year, said John Grandy, an analyst at Toronto-based Orion Securities, in a note to investors.

``We think Rogers is smart to undercut the key selling feature of Bell’s bundle plan,’’ Grandy wrote. He rates Rogers shares ``overweight.’’

The Rogers plan offers calling anywhere in Canada and the mainland U.S. at any time without additional charge. Customers must subscribe to at least two of Roger’s cable TV, Internet and wireless services, the company said on its Web site.

Jan Innes, a Rogers spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Shares of Rogers rose 82 cents to C$28.31 at 11:31 a.m. New York time on the Toronto Stock Exchange; they had increased 25 percent this year. Shares of BCE fell 18 cents to C$28.32.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Catherine McLean in Toronto at mclean@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Emma Moody at emoody@bloomberg.net.