David and Alexa Lemstra, a brother-and-sister team in Hamilton, Ont., don't think the government should have spent taxpayers' money on building a cellphone rate calculator.

David Lemstra thinks $1.4 million might be enough money to start a cellphone company, let alone build an online tool that compares rate plans.

That's how much the federal government spent over three years to build a website, only to end up scrapping it a few weeks before an expected June launch. Lemstra, a 31-year-old Hamilton, Ont. native with a Masters degree in computer engineering, built the same tool by himself in less time for almost no money.

"That number does make me feel less like I've wasted two-plus years of my life," he says.

Lemstra's free online tool, at cellplanexpert.ca, lets users input how they're expecting to use their mobile phone, from minutes to long-distance calling to features like voice mail. The system then searches a database of more than 4,000 plans — compiled and kept up-to-date by Lemstra and his sister and business partner Alexa — and spits out a list of rates, starting with the cheapest.

The website works much like the one put together by Industry Canada. The government ministry said its tool never had an official launch date, and it was scrapped because technical issues prevented it from providing usable results.

Focus groups that tested it, however, gave it a glowing recommendation. Critics said lobbying from wireless companies, who were concerned that the calculator would lead people to lower-priced plans, was the real reason for the quiet junking of the project.

Neither tool took data plans or bundle discounts into account, but that is something that could be easily added later, Lemstra says.

"That's a little bit ridiculous, because most of the cellphone companies can't keep their own information up to date," Lemstra says. "They usually don't know how most of their own options work, so I don't know how you could accuse the government of Canada of falling short as well."

If there is a flaw with Lemstra's website, it's that it requires the manual input of plans. His sister does most of the legwork, only accepting a provider's plan as official after confirming it with three separate customer service representatives.

Lemstra launched the tool in 2007 and has been upgrading it since. He says he stepped away from it for a while but rejigged it recently because of the controversy surrounding the government project.

'Starting point'

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, the industry group that lobbied the government to scrap its tool, says Lemstra's website suffers from the same flaws as the government's — but it's a good effort.

"It may serve as a very basic starting point for some consumers," says spokesman Marc Choma. "However, I would encourage all consumers — before making any buying decisions based on a variety of cost calculators they will find on the web — to visit the service providers' own websites for accurate, up-to-the-minute prices and a full menu of service choices."

Lemstra doesn't think the government should have started its own calculator in the first place. Consumers would be better served by Ottawa focusing on bigger-picture issues, he says, like preventing the new wireless carriers that are starting up in the next few months from getting bought out by the likes of Bell, Rogers and Telus.

"I see their rationale, but I think they're better off ensuring we have competition," he says. "It's much more important for them to keep these new networks independent."

Lemstra hopes to turn his website, which is free to use for now, into a money-making endeavour. He believes taking advertising money from cellphone companies would taint the independence of the tool, so he's looking at introducing some sort of user-fee system.

"We'll be giving people some idea of the results before they actually pay," he says. "People might just say that [saving] hours of time is worth five bucks."