Saskatchewan's phone company plans to expand its phone book business into Winnipeg, in a move that will rival MTS Allstream's Yellow Pages in the city.

The phone-book division of Regina-based SaskTel hopes to replicate the success it has had publishing business phone directories in Calgary, Edmonton and other Alberta cities.

It plans to spend $3 million to launch its own business phone book in Winnipeg.

"We'll be looking for salespeople to start immediately," SaskTel spokeswoman Darcee MacFarlane said Friday.

"We'll be looking at starting our canvass in October of this year, with a book to be printed and distributed in October of '07."

DirectWest, a wholly owned subsidiary of SaskTel, will publish the new Winnipeg phone book. It prints all Saskatchewan phone directories and also has an 85 per cent share of a company that prints phone books in five Alberta cities.

SaskTel's move into the Winnipeg market was approved by Saskatchewan's provincial cabinet earlier this month.

It won't be the first company to compete with the Yellow and White Pages phone books put out on behalf of MTS.

Superpages printed 350,000 copies of its own Winnipeg phone book two years ago, but after only one edition its American publishers pulled out of the market.

MacFarlane said the Winnipeg market looks promising.

"We look to be the second book in a location, and in this case, we would be the second book," MacFarlane said. "But, of course, we'd market ourselves as the first book."