It's official now: Tony Lacavera out as CEO, placed as "honorary chairman"

[Tendenzi]

According to Wind's former CEO

Don't believe that hype.

It's a long but informative read, Industry Canada cites a lot of viable statistics and facts that go into their decision of how the auction will play out. Tony kind of wanted 700Mhz given to him for free, the government feels otherwise on that topic only. But has made interesting accommodations to the concerns they're aware of.

34. Spectrum caps in the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz auctions. To support the objectives of sustained competition and robust investment in a minimally intrusive manner, Industry Canada is applying spectrum caps in the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz auctions to limit the amount of spectrum that each company can obtain.

35. These spectrum caps will give four or more service providers in most regions, including AWS entrants or future new entrants, the opportunity to access prime spectrum in both the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands. The caps will also support competition by preventing a further concentration of holdings in the 2500 MHz band, allowing many service providers to improve their networks and the experiences of their customers.

36. Spectrum caps are more appropriate than set-asides for the auctioning of 700 MHz and 2500 MHz spectrum because of the limited quantity of 700 MHz spectrum available; the different values that providers may place on the specific blocks of 700 MHz; and the fact that certain companies already hold licences for large amounts of 2500 MHz spectrum. The use of caps will not require Industry Canada to identify specific blocks of spectrum for a set-aside, but will allow companies to choose blocks based on equipment ecosystem preferences and business plans. For these reasons, the use of caps will support the objective of sustained competition in a less intrusive manner than the use of a set-aside. Further details on the measures to support competition through spectrum caps in the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz auction can be found in sections B3 and C2 respectively.

38. Extending and improving tower sharing and roaming policies. In order to further support competition in a minimally intrusive manner, Industry Canada intends to extend and improve the existing tower sharing and roaming policies instituted in 2008. These policies promote competition by requiring wireless service providers to provide other companies with access to roaming and towers on commercial terms. The proposed changes include an extension of in-territory roaming for all service providers indefinitely, accelerated timelines for both triggering arbitration and the arbitration process, and improved transparency with respect to the tower information necessary to facilitate sharing. Industry Canada will seek stakeholder views on these changes in a separate process.

And the time frames for these auctions are here:

A6. Auction Timing
40. Industry Canada consulted on the advantages and disadvantages of proceeding with a combined auction for the 700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands, or holding the auctions separately and, if so, which band should be auctioned first. Industry Canada will proceed with the 700 MHz auction in the first half of 2013, followed by the 2500 MHz auction in early 2014. Further details on this decision can be found in Part D of this document.

Read more here: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst...10121.html#pA1

[rockjock]

According to Wind's former CEO, the CRTC hasn't set aside enough 700 Mhz spectrum for WIND to set up LTE, let alone LTE and voice on the band. If they spectrum share with other companies then they may be able to launch LTE.

Come again? How is it the other new entrants had no issue with the set aside? But none of this should matter since wind had over 200,000,000 subscribers and really deep pockets. Lets be realistic here for a moment.. lets just say that wind did decide to bid, would the added debt, and same level of service get them to the finish line? I think tony said some nonsense of beach front property and not being able to build the hotel.. hmm sorta like buying spectrum and not being able to build a viable network..

[Shoephone]

Come again? How is it the other new entrants had no issue with the set aside? But none of this should matter since wind had over 200,000,000 subscribers and really deep pockets. Lets be realistic here for a moment.. lets just say that wind did decide to bid, would the added debt, and same level of service get them to the finish line? I think tony said some nonsense of beach front property and not being able to build the hotel.. hmm sorta like buying spectrum and not being able to build a viable network..

I'll try one last time with Naguib Sawiris: he sold his entire interest in Orascom Telecom, the company which officially owns WIND Canada. This fact is a matter of public record. 52% of Orascom Telecom is owned by Vimpelcom, the remaining 48% is publicly traded on the Cairo stock exchange. Sawiris does own 52% of OTMT, which owns the North Korea wireless company Sawiris started. Sawiris has zero say in anything that goes on at WIND Canada.

And despite WIND Canada talking about the "power of 200 million subscribers", very few of those are WIND subscribers. Most of them are Russian, Ukranian and Algerian or South Asian telecom subscribers that will never ever even hear the brand-name WIND. ARPU typically runs $3 to $11 across most of the subscribers. And in 2013, while it will have positive cash flow of about $500M per quarter, it has $2B in long-term debt coming due followed by another $1.6B in 2014. they don't have a lot of "loose change" to invest in 700 MHz as a "big bet" given other opportunities it has among its holdings.

[Tendenzi]

I'll try one last time with Naguib Sawiris: he sold his entire interest in Orascom Telecom, the company which officially owns WIND Canada. This fact is a matter of public record. 52% of Orascom Telecom is owned by Vimpelcom, the remaining 48% is publicly traded on the Cairo stock exchange. Sawiris does own 52% of OTMT, which owns the North Korea wireless company Sawiris started. Sawiris has zero say in anything that goes on at WIND Canada.

And despite WIND Canada talking about the "power of 200 million subscribers", very few of those are WIND subscribers. Most of them are Russian, Ukranian and Algerian or South Asian telecom subscribers that will never ever even hear the brand-name WIND. ARPU typically runs $3 to $11 across most of the subscribers. And in 2013, while it will have positive cash flow of about $500M per quarter, it has $2B in long-term debt coming due followed by another $1.6B in 2014. they don't have a lot of "loose change" to invest in 700 MHz as a "big bet" given other opportunities it has among its holdings.

You're scratching the same surface rock jock has been saying the whole time. You're on the right track with questioning.

[Mr Mystery]

So? Stick a fork in them? They're done?

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk 2

[TigerMSTR]

So? Stick a fork in them? They're done?

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk 2

WIND has been full of surprises. I wouldn't make any bets. We really don't know what will happen in the future. But it is clear that they aren't in the best of shape. The future dosen't look good.

[rodtaylor]

Any Idea when the Q4 report will be released??

Q4 numbers take the longest due to it being end of year. They should be available by mid-march.

Wind currently claims to have broken 600k customers as of January 25th; so the Q4 number when released shouldn't be too far short of the target unless boxing week sales were absolutely massive or yet-to-be-activated phones were a popular Christmas gift.

http://windmobileblog.com/2013/01/20...ear-in-review/

[Shoephone]

It's a fair posting at the WIND blog of some of the things that went well in 2012. They did grow the footprint, the network, the retail dealer footprint, the postpaid base, the net subscribers, and gross revenue. But they also did not live up to publicly stated plans to launch in Victoria, Winnipeg, Halifax or drive ARPU in the $35 range or be the consolidator of the new entrants in 2012. One way or another, 2013 will be the pivotal year for the enterprise.