I was reading on Wikipedia, and something caught my eye:



Does anyone know the full story to that?

Well they were based in major cities / urban areas and offered plans that were cheap and gave people unlimited use. These were the days of $45/month for CityFido (Unlimited Calling) and $50 for Unlimited GPRS (Data)

Microcell Communications was in serious trouble as they were going into debit very fast. They were willing to sell the company in 2004. Both TELUS Communications and Rogers Communications started bidding on Fido. Microcell Communications rejected TELUS's first offer for about 800 Million which was made in Aug - Sept of 2004.

Rogers at the time was Rogers AT&T and needed AT&T's say on what was purchased over $1 Million. At the same time AT&T and Cingular were going through a buyout of their own and AT&T payed little attention to Canada. For this reason AT&T agreed to sell its shares to Rogers.

TELUS made another bid for about 1.01 Billion and again Fido rejected the offer. About a week after Rogers bought the rest of its shares from AT&T, Rogers made a bid for 1.40 Billion Dollars and aquired Fido Solutions.

Very shortly after the CityFido and Unlimited GPRS plans vanashed and were replaced with plans more in the range on what current providers offered.

TELUS and Rogers had Per Second Billing to match Fido before Rogers bought them out, after that prices increased dramatically.



(This is probally not that accurate but this is how I remember it, I may be wrong.)

Anyone remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utWRSKC_u5w

Actually, CityFido originally launched at $40 for flatrate calling (this is the plan I still have) and it wasn't introduced until many years after Fido launched. Fido's original strategy was great value plans and NO contracts, as well as being extremely innovative. Fido launched the first data service in Canada (GPRS), the first text service (SMS), and of course the launch of iFido Wireless Internet service (now known as Rogers Portable Internet). Not to mention the Fido Hiptop service with $20/month unlimited data. (I still miss my hiptop!)

Fido/Microcell was a great company. Excellent plans, the latest technology, and very good urban coverage.

Actually I'm more interested in the T-Mobile part... how were they involved? They just took part in funding and that's it?

30$ for 400 min + unlimited incoming.... what I wouldn’t give for a plan like that today. But things have changed in Canada ... for the worst.

The commercial makes you remember the good ol days of Fido.

Nowadays they change the name of a plan and hire new employees in hopes of 'driving sales'

Remeber back in the day when you signed up with Fido, they gave you a recipe card box with all the company info organized so nicely in the box with tabs???

Actually, TELESYSTEMs was involved with Microcell. Don't remember anything at all about T-Mobile.

T-Mobile had a stake in Microcell up until the CCAA re-organization when they got nothing just like any other investor. I believe they had a stake which was close to the maximum they were allowed under Canadian law (33%? something like that). The belief internally was that the laws would be changed at some point and then T-Mobile would likely buy us.

At that time in the 90's they were the only large GSM provider in the US so it made a lot of sense. Obviously the tech crash of 2000 changed the industry and US companies started scaling back their investments in Canada. Hard to believe, but the national companies weren't profitable back then - at least Rogers or Fido weren't, and Telus and Bell were still very reliant on home phone revenue.

I just found mine today, I was cleaning up the drawer of XBOX games in my room (they're all my brothers, not sure why I have them) to make room for my 2 medium sized camera bags, and I came across it. I'm digging through my garbage now to find it again.

If I remember correctly, the rumours inside (and out) were mostly to the effect that ATT would buy it out. Because wasn't it at the same time that ATT merged with... was it cingular?

Anyway, the fact is, laws never changed, and ATT just sold their participation back to Rogers who than brought MCELL out.

My memory is far from clear though on this story, because frankly, I prefer to forget about sad stories. Microcell... what could've been...

I even used to be proud to work for them. I have very good memories, people talk about how companies like google and such treat their employees well, let me tell you Microcell treated us with respect and this, well before the googles of this world. It's actually making me sad to think about this. Crazy stuff.
Microcell is dead, Fido is dead.

Oh, for the record I remain convinced that it's Telesystem that had a participation in MCell, perhaps through T-Mobile?
Keep in mind what I said about my memory being deficient on this matter though. I should probably just stfu about it lol.

Oooo... Nostalgia time.

http://www.bos.ca/index_home.html

click on portfolio and select Fido Solutions Inc.

Its basically all the older commercials

Voicestream had a 15% stake in Microcell in 2000. Voicestream was later acquired by T-Mobile and there was a subsequent name change in 2001. Telesystems had a 61% of the common shares in Microcell and would appoint 2 Voicestream (T-Mobile) members to the Microcell board.

That worked out to $37.45/month with a very small zone.

I much prefer the new "cityfido" plan because it affords more flexibility. Imagine going to Ajax and having to pay an out of zone fee! It happened to my mother all the time. $2.55 more and you get to use your minutes anywhere in the zone (ie. no LD charges), as well as unlimited text messages.

Yeah, but CityFido is only available in big urban areas. It’s not available for example in Halifax, so the old 30$ plan would have been a good alternative.