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Canadians Get Prepaid Wireless Service

P repaid Cellular Services BELL MOBILITY, SOFT TRACKS

For the first time in North America, a commercial service will allow Canada's Bell Mobility customers to use their cell phones to purchase prepaid cellular services and have the payments withdrawn directly from their bank accounts.

The service will be based on Soft Tracks' Skypay payment architecture system, which has been certified by Canadian banks and processors to accept debit and credit transactions originating from wireless networks. Scotiabank will facilitate payment processing through the customer's bank.

The service is expected to open up a wide variety of "m-commerce" possibilities. Consumers will be able to use their cell phones to make purchases with other merchants.

"The introduction of this payment system will play an important part in delivering future mobile commerce services to Bell Mobility customers," said Michael Neuman, President and COO of Bell Mobility.

"This new service will bring purchasing convenience to millions of consumers who use wireless phones," said Juliana Cafik, President and CEO of Soft Tracks.

The new service is available to Bell Mobility's 982,000 prepaid customers as long as they have a bank account in good standing. Similar services have been available in parts of Europe. The difference for Canadians, though, is that they will be able to have payments drawn from the financial institution of their choice.

In the past, Bell Mobility customers who wanted to buy prepaid airtime were required to use a credit card or purchase phone cards through a retailer. With the new service, customers activate the prepaid account beforehand, then dial a special number from their wireless phone and use a PIN to select the correct airtime amount. The bank account is debited accordingly, and the time is automatically added to the prepaid account within 30 minutes.

Bell Mobility www.bell.ca

Scotiabank www.scotiabank.com

Soft Tracks Enterprises 1258 - 13351 Commerce Parkway Richmond, B.C. V6V2X7 www.softtracks.com