PM: Dead in the water?

[ZedZidaric]

I haven't forgotten the comments dripping with racist insinuations made by their CEO on Fox News. For that alone, I have no problems with seeing them go under.

Do you have a reference for the racist insinuations?

Why would anyone want to buy or merge with PM?
1. Their assets are useless to the other players (spectrum and network)
2. They do not have enough subs to be of interest
3. Neither Wind nor Mobi are big enough to absorb PM staff.

[cmstlist]

Issue with Public Mobile is their weird phone network choice. CDMA on AWS only is unheard of elsewhere in the world, which horribly limits their phone choices.

At least for the smaller US carriers like MetroPCS and Cricket, they also use the mainstream CDMA frequencies, which allows for more phones (e.g. MetroPCS also has BlackBerries). This also allows for an opportunity was that MetroPCS and Cricket flashed ex-Sprint and Verizon phones for use on their networks, so they have a extra selling point of "no-need to change phones". You can't do the same with Public.

Public Mobile does not have AWS spectrum. They have PCS G Band spectrum, and the only devices they could find so far in the whole world which support it are these CDMA phones. But these devices should also support conventional CDMA frequencies, so I see no reason why they couldn't have worked out a roaming agreement.

[goku_vegeta]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Curve 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9300; en) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.380 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

when you enter the canadian market without any HSPA/UMTS, there's no hope I swear if public mobile had its network deployed in the early 2000s it would have been very successful

[frankie5string]

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Curve 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9300; en) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.380 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

when you enter the canadian market without any HSPA/UMTS, there's no hope I swear if public mobile had its network deployed in the early 2000s it would have been very successful

This couldn't be farther from the truth. It would have been virtually impossible for them to do what they're doing now, but in the early 2000s. The equipment would have been larger, FAR more costly, and they likely would have folded simply from the financial pressures of the suppliers. They would have to lease a lot more infrastructure at regulated rates and would not have lasted as long as they have so far.

The people who are using PM don't care AT ALL about HSPA/UMTS. Cheap voice and text is all they care about. Many are fresh off the boat and the local PM store near me even hired a bunch of Pilipino people because the best way to get phones into the hands of these new immigrants is through friends of theirs who work at the stores. It's pretty amazing to see how well they're doing here.

On the other hand I'd say most of the Russian/Ukranian people are not using PM... they're mostly going with Rogers...

[kEiThZ]

@Frankie

The FOB crowd has Mobi's $25 and $35 plans though. The $25 plan is certainly a better deal if you don't need voicemail. The $35 plan with Mobi is a better deal if you don't need national long distance. And Mobi let's you roam. That's a big deal.

Not to mention the special they have on right now which will most certainly rob PM's Christmas rush.

I still think people are wrong here. They assume that immigrants are more ignorant about mobile phones and don't care as much about features or data. I'd say they are wrong. Even among new immigrants the needs probably run the gamut of any family in their income bracket, lifestyle, etc.

[kEiThZ]

Do you have a reference for the racist insinuations?

See his Fox News interview and him constantly making a big deal about 'foreign' investment in Wind and the fact that their backers are Egyptian....while pleading for US investment in PM.

So foreign investment from Egypt bad, foreign investment from USA good?

That racist piece of trash needs to see his baby crash and burn.

[frankie5string]

@Frankie

The FOB crowd has Mobi's $25 and $35 plans though. The $25 plan is certainly a better deal if you don't need voicemail. The $35 plan with Mobi is a better deal if you don't need national long distance. And Mobi let's you roam. That's a big deal.


I still think people are wrong here. They assume that immigrants are more ignorant about mobile phones and don't care as much about features or data. I'd say they are wrong. Even among new immigrants the needs probably run the gamut of any family in their income bracket, lifestyle, etc.

No, I'm sorry, but there's no Mobilicity store around here and nobody is using mobilicity handsets... they all have those cheap ZTE handsets... because that's what they want... cheap + talk + text...

The Public Mobile store here is at Bathurst and Wilson... do the math... ;-)

[ngold]

From looking at their CEO's interview at FOX news, their business strategy is to survive until the ownership rule gets revoked, so they can be bought by Sprint, Verizon, or MetroPCS and used as a "platform".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6mvr80Omtk
at 4:40

AFAIK that is very wishy washy thinking.

This is the "platform" they offer:
- Crappy phones.
- Crappy coverage.
- No roaming, can't even dial 911 outside their coverage area.
- High price.
- Awkward advertisements.

The company has a really twisted logic. They operate as if:
- They invented unlimited calling.
- As long as they advertise themselves as inexpensive, people will think they are inexpensive.
- Immigrants don't know about the cheaper plans from big 3 retention depts and the other new entrants.
- Immigrants don't mind using crappy phones.
- Their $40 a month cell phone can replace $17.99 a month home phone.
- $40 just for unlimited texting is cheap.(See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR0WluIUDsw)
- Some stupid US telco will eventually buy it out to use as a "platform".

[frankie5string]

- Immigrants don't know about the cheaper plans from big 3 retention depts and the other new entrants.

I think this is the dumbest thing I've read in this thread - by a long shot. How do you expect people who are used to walking into a corner store or local shop to buy a cellphone to know ANYTHING about "retention" departments? They want to be able to walk in and buy something cheap and fast. Maybe one family member cares about a "fancy phone" but the rest do not.

Really, PM is for a very specific type of customer which they CAN win. Talking about retention departments in this context is just silly. ...and it's not just the FOBs... some of them have been here for years and are just tired of being fleeced by Rogers or Fido... They got Rogers when they came here because they came with world-phones and wanted to buy "just a SIM". PM gives them a much cheaper option now that they know their world-phone is somewhat overkill here. They also like dealing with friends - not faceless corporations. PM stores have local people working in them.

None of them are using the $40 a month plan.

I'm not a PM user, or standing up for them - I think they're really taking a huge risk with their tiny network and limited bandwidth. Something is working though - and while from a tech standpoint they seem pretty quiet, people are buying and using the service - and seem to be happy.

[CorSter]

I've been convinced from day 1 that Public is going to be a customer farm and he's gonna sell to the highest bidder the day the ownership restrictions are lifted and/or the 5-year restriction from the incumbents owning their spectrum ends.

[cmstlist]

At present, I doubt anyone would bid particularly high for PM due to the obscure frequency issue. However this could change in the next few years with the introduction of LTE phones. If they can operate LTE over PCS G Band, then any other company running LTE over any band at all would have more interest in PM's assets.

[ngold]

At present, I doubt anyone would bid particularly high for PM due to the obscure frequency issue. However this could change in the next few years with the introduction of LTE phones. If they can operate LTE over PCS G Band, then any other company running LTE over any band at all would have more interest in PM's assets.

+1. But some bargain hunter may be interested in their towers if a liquidation occurs. I believe the towers can be converted to different technologies and frequencies (If cant convert to different frequencies, then the existing CDMA customer need to be kicked off the frequency to make room for LTE). The brand itself already got pwned by Wind, Mobilicity, and Chatr. It reminds me of Bell's Solo Mobile.

[kEiThZ]

If both Wind and Mobi run this $40 for another month, PM is really going to be in trouble.

[terry0703]

Everyday I see a PM salesperson standing at the kiosk at Gateway in Finch Station.
I don't know how well he has been doing it, but I wonder if many people will be interested when they know it's useless north of Steeles.
If people regularly accesses Finch Station, they are very likely to travel north (Richmond Hill, Markham, etc.) quite frequently.

[OntarioGuy]

http://mobilesyrup.com/2010/12/22/ha...iers-to-merge/

Any thoughts on this? Personally, I think Public will have a hard time finding a partner to merge with.