Canadian consumers should brace themselves for a flood of telemarketers calling their homes and trying to woo them with deals on home telephone service as the industry heads toward deregulation next year, experts say.

But they add that customers looking to save any money will likely have to sign up for a bundle of services and maybe a longer term contract to receive the lower rates.

Ian Angus, president of Angus TeleManagement Group, said currently local service is month-to-month and phone companies are not allowed to lock you in. They also can't bundle their local services in with their unregulated services.

"They will start doing that almost right away because one of their big drives is not just to deal with the people who have left them, but to lock in their current customer base as much as they can," Angus said.

"There will also be a big push on winbacks. They are going to have packages that are specifically targeted at given competitors."

Angus also suggested that telemarketing may be the conduit of choice because the companies won't have to tip off their competitors as to what kinds of deals they are offering.

Ottawa announced it would move toward lifting the restrictions on the incumbent telephone companies on Monday in the major markets where competition exists.

The current regulations prevent the incumbent phone companies such as Telus, Bell, Bell Aliant Regional and Manitoba Telecom and SaskTel, which control 92 per cent of the local phone market in Canada, from charging below cost for local service.

They have also been banned from trying to win back customers by calling them up immediately after they switched services with tantalizing offers of rebates.

Under the proposed changes, the phone companies will be able to launch winback campaigns immediately and offer promotions they have previously been prevented from offering.

Analysts suggest the telephone and cable companies will all try to win new customers and lure back old ones with offers of lower rates, packages of services and deals on long-term contracts

Jeff Leiper, research director at the Yankee Group, said the total lifetime value of the customer is dependent in large degree to that customer making a commitment to the company.

"The value for the phone company in having you subscribe to multiple services just isn't there if you're churning," he said.

Leiper said the phone companies, in anticipation of the decision, have been phoning customers to make sure they are on the right sort of calling plans and receiving the right sorts of services on their lines.

"They're going to be phoning us at dinner. They're going to be mailing us in the mail. Pop up ads on our browsers. It is going to be a very intense fight," Leiper said.