In The News

[gun26]

It sounds like Vimpel is sending in one of its trusted international honchos to Canada. That can only mean that they're going to make Wind and the coming spectrum auction a priority and are going to stand by their Canadian operation and keep investing in it to buy spectrum and anything else they need. Despite Lacavera's negative reaction to the announced auction rules and Naguib Sawiris' doom-and-gloom pronounements last fall, Bessada's move means they're here to stay in Canada.

[pjw918]

Competition best for wireless industry? Maybe not - Globe and Mail, March 27

The Harper government’s bid to stoke competition in the wireless industry was criticized by upstarts as still too protective of established players such as Rogers Wireless.

“It’s a total disaster,” Wind Mobile chief executive Anthony Lacavera said. “It gives the illusion that the competitive marketplace has been strengthened, but it will be a catalyst for consolidation and new entrants will be starved of frequencies.”

According to new research, consolidation of new entrants is precisely what the federal government should be aiming to achieve. The Royal Economic Society is holding its annual conference at the University of Cambridge this week. Among the papers presented is one by Yan Li and Catherine Waddams of the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy and the Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia. Rather than a free-for-all, they conclude the optimal wireless industry includes no more than four or five companies.

...They determined that increased competition has an obvious positive effect on productivity and innovation. But the strongest results came not from widespread competition, but from oligopolies.

“The most robust finding is the positive effect on both levels and growth in firm efficiency of competition, which has profound implications for the design of markets,” the authors write. “In an area which is sensitive both from a political and business perspective, governments and regulators should encourage active rivalry between four or five firms, but extending such competition to more entrants may have little, or negative impact on the productivity of the participants.”

[pjw918]

(on the lighter side)

New dating service - Conglomermate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2EJJ8BCfCg

[pjw918]

Regional cable firms tapped as suitors in wireless consolidation - Globe and Mail, April 11

Regional cable companies such as Vidéotron Ltée and Shaw Communications Inc. are best positioned to drive consolidation in the wireless sector by acquiring new entrants, a strategy that would enable them to better compete as “quad” plays.
...
Even so, a new report by Moody’s Investors Service argues that there is little potential for the three wireless-only players (Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile) to merge on their own. It contends that a consolidated entity would continue to grapple with financing challenges for costly capital expenditures, while facing an uphill battle to attract subscribers with a wireless-only offering....

[icemasta]

Regional cable firms tapped as suitors in wireless consolidation - Globe and Mail, April 11

Regional cable companies such as Vidéotron Ltée and Shaw Communications Inc. are best positioned to drive consolidation in the wireless sector by acquiring new entrants, a strategy that would enable them to better compete as “quad” plays.
...
Even so, a new report by Moody’s Investors Service argues that there is little potential for the three wireless-only players (Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile) to merge on their own. It contends that a consolidated entity would continue to grapple with financing challenges for costly capital expenditures, while facing an uphill battle to attract subscribers with a wireless-only offering....

Can't see Wind merge with any of the larger players but can definitely see Mobilicity. Having access to Shaw's unused spectrum or Videotron's Montreal network would be big for Mobilicity. Wind should try and secure a roaming agreement with Videotron for Wind customers to use their network in Montreal.

[pjw918]

Cellphone companies agree to disable stolen phones for good - thestar.com, April 11

The United States is setting up a national database of stolen cellphones to make them harder to use, but no such plan is in the works in Canada.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, along with major wireless carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, announced Tuesday the move to set up a database of identification numbers that are unique to each phone.

With that list, cellular carriers will be able to permanently disable a phone once it has been stolen, and that will decrease their value on the street. Until now, U.S. carriers have only been disabling so-called SIM cards, which can be swapped in and out. That’s enabled a black market to exist for stolen phones...

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AP video
Wind thread

[endlessdayz]

Can't see Wind merge with any of the larger players but can definitely see Mobilicity. Having access to Shaw's unused spectrum or Videotron's Montreal network would be big for Mobilicity. Wind should try and secure a roaming agreement with Videotron for Wind customers to use their network in Montreal.

Mobilicity and shaw would be a good partnership in my opinion. Shaw has money and specturm to help with expansion. and mobilicity already has a reliable group of subscribers across the country. I can see the eastern cities a bit of a problem as if I recall shaw doesn't have any network cables in the east coast.

[Mr Mystery]

Mobilicity and shaw would be a good partnership in my opinion. Shaw has money and specturm to help with expansion. and mobilicity already has a reliable group of subscribers across the country. I can see the eastern cities a bit of a problem as if I recall shaw doesn't have any network cables in the east coast.

Shaw would just follow the the big 3 in plans/pricing, 3 years, etc. That's why they didn't use their spectrum. Wanted nothing to do with being a new entrant with plans like wind/mobi to compete. They wanted the big 3 piece.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using HowardForums

[droidacolyte]

Even without the new entrants, Shaw would have been forced to compete on price because they certainly can't compete on quality with a regional AWS network. If people see that Shaw is only a bit cheaper than their current Big 3 plan, they won't have the incentive to jump ship. Being a regional carrier is one thing when it comes to Cable TV, internet and home phone services. You can get away with pricing yourself only a bit better than the Big 3 there. Which is what Shaw does. But not in wireless and certainly not with inferior spectrum.

WIND Mobile offering "quad play" services sounds interesting. Yes it does seem redundant for WIND to be offering home phone service when they offer unlimited talk on wireless. But if I had kids, a home phone line would probably be a necessity. Something like a Magic Jack or something. VoIP is impotent during a blackout. And wireless networks can get overloaded during a big blackout (like in 2003). But those incidences are so, so rare to justify paying a fortune to Bell for copperwire landline service.

Having television and home internet service is also a good idea for WIND. Even TELUS has a quad-play of services. They just aren't all available here out east.

[pjw918]

“Solo Mobile will no longer be activating new customers” - mobilesyrup, April 13

This is an interesting turn of events. Solo Mobile was launched in 2000 and is a sub-brand of Bell Mobility. The entry-level and low cost prepaid player has been overshadowed by competitors such as Fido, Koodo, Chatr, Wind, Mobilicity and even Bell’s other sub-brand, Virgin Mobile. The last time we’ve seen Solo release a new handset was on October 13th with the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Gio. Since then the brand has been dark.

We’ve been tipped that Solo Mobile will officially stop “activating new customers.” According to the internal doc we received it states that “As of May 17, 2012 Solo Mobile will no longer be activating new customers (both postpaid and prepaid). Existing Solo Mobile customers will not be impacted by this change; they will continue to enjoy great rates, amazing Canada-wide coverage and affordable devices.”
...
There’s no other details about why Bell has decided to cease Solo activations, possibly to put all their focus into two brands (Bell and Virgin), or could be all the new wireless competition has taken its toll financially. Perhaps a 3-brand strategy doesn’t work and Rogers Chatr Wireless will possibly be next – which is what we’re hearing, but still unconfirmed. [emphasis mine]

[Dave114]

Even without the new entrants, Shaw would have been forced to compete on price because they certainly can't compete on quality with a regional AWS network. If people see that Shaw is only a bit cheaper than their current Big 3 plan, they won't have the incentive to jump ship. Being a regional carrier is one thing when it comes to Cable TV, internet and home phone services. You can get away with pricing yourself only a bit better than the Big 3 there. Which is what Shaw does. But not in wireless and certainly not with inferior spectrum.

Uhm... this seems like a fairly ignorant comment.

With Shaw now in control of Starchoice (operating now as Shaw Direct), Shaw may now be cable/satellite provider in Canada with the largest number of customers (looking at for 2006 era CRTC data for cable and satellite TV to get an idea of numbers). Not sure how successful their home phone service is, but as far as internet goes in Western Canada Shaw is probably reasonable to classify as one of the "big 2" in most areas.

How well Shaw could do in wireless is another question, but it seems a bit silly and ignorant to portray them as a minor, regional player stuck offering lower prices than the "Big 3"

[icemasta]

Haha forgot all about Solo Mobile. Don't remember seeing a Solo Mobile kiosk in the last year or two.

Kinda surprised by MS stating Chat-r is next to be cut. Seemed like a good alternative for people that wanted unlimited talk on a Big 3 network.

I'm thinking Chat-r is taking away more Rogers/Fido customers than of Mobi/Wind as they had hoped. I think Wind/Mobi customers sign up for the data (since they offer the cheapest talk/text/DATA plans available) and considering Chat-r for a plan with data is a joke and way too expensive.

[pjw918]

Woman suffers 'bill shock' with $12,000 bill - abc San Francisco, April 12

One of the more dramatic big bill stories. Contemporary relevance:

1) Ontario intends to require that carriers notify customers about to incur overusage or roaming charges,*

2) The FCC and major carriers in the US have announced plans for IMEI blacklisting.

It reminds us of the importance of using available on-phone security and the immediate reporting of lost/stolen phones to at least have the SIM blocked.

--
* not so useful in the case of lost/stolen

[pjw918]

Dad takes stand against Rogers over texting charges - CBC, April 16

A B.C. father is refusing to pay a $1,400 bill received from Rogers after his teenaged son was charged for sending hundreds of texts to his girlfriend, despite a contract that includes unlimited texting in Canada.

"I thought he could text a thousand times a day, because that’s perfectly fine. He’s covered for all of Canada," said Alex Dunsmore of Kamloops, B.C. "His girlfriend lives four blocks away."

It started when Dunsmore's son's girlfriend downloaded a "free" texting app — from a U.S. company called HeyWire — to send free texts anywhere. When Dunsmore’s son Ryan texted her back, he had no idea it would incur a charge for long distance texts, routed through the U.S. then to his girlfriend in Canada....

Dunsmore said Rogers allowed 1,300 of those texts to go through in one month — all to the same number — without informing him his son's $35 "unlimited" texting plan was going way over the basic charge.

“Why was I not notified, as the legally responsible person in this contract, that there was suddenly this atypical spending?” Dunsmore asked.

He said this type of long distance texting should trigger a notice to the customer, similar to the one sent when cellphone customers leave Canada and face roaming charges.

“I think that somebody somewhere has decided not to [notify customers] about this because they don’t have to.”

When Dunsmore got the bill — $400 for one month, including the texts — he complained to Rogers and refused to pay for that portion.

“I think it’s a deliberate process on Rogers's part to try to get more money out of their clients,” he said...

Because the texting charges went into arrears, Rogers eventually cut off both Dunsmore's son's and daughter's phones — and charged him $800 for "cancelling" the contracts. (Dunsmore doesn't have his own cellphone).

"They charged me $400 [each] because the contract was terminated early. But they were the ones that terminated it because I simply didn’t pay the money in dispute," he said.

--
CRTC: Is competition working, or is regulation necessary?

[pjw918]

Disable stolen cellphones, police tell carriers - CBC, April 15

Toronto police say the cellphone industry needs to do more to protect clients whose devices are stolen with increasing frequency.

Police say that cellphone robberies have doubled in the past three years, with 1,800 such cases occurring last year in Toronto.

“That’s not including theft,” said Supt. Ron Taverner.

“That’s straight robberies, where victims were approached and physically accosted.”

But the problems don’t end when a cellphone is ripped away from a user, or otherwise stolen.

The person who has taken the cellphone can easily use the device on another network, as no unified database of stolen devices exists...

Police say that cellphone companies should have a system in place where they can shut down a stolen phone, reducing the incentive for theft and robbery.

“Our goal is to get the carriers, the providers, the cellphone companies to come on board with us, to be able to disable stolen phones in the future,” said Taverner.

The U.S. wireless industry recently committed to creating a national database system to allow providers to shut down stolen cellphones in the manner that police in Toronto describe...