Wind Mobile... 1st telecommunications company in Canada to go all foreign!

[infamouskid]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stor...bile-deal.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...90H19K20130119
http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/01/18/to...ascom-telecom/

open up some champagne.

[Jimboski]

What does this mean.

[infamouskid]

it means... real market competition coming to Canada.
more money from big boys and orascom and vimpelcom.
now your gonna see .05 cent per minute and .05 cent per txt plans n shiet like that.

What does this mean.

[infamouskid]

also now that this is in play.
this opens up options for say... verizon, att and sprint or even any other international player to come in.
aren't you tired of 80 - 100 dollar phone bills? or stupidly priced internet?
it's time the real big boys are allowed to come in and show the entrenched what how its done.
these are the wind mobile canada's backers and soon to be full on control owners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VimpelCom_Ltd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orascom_Telecom_Holding

do you think rogers and bell and telus can match the amount of revenue these boys bring in each month?
i mean they got 205 million subs under vimpelcom alone.
the boys at orascom are pretty big boys too. they were the first and largest network in north korea.
if you look at their history of the 2 brands which are now 1. you will be like... wow. rogers and bell are puny compared to these suckers.

and just to top off how these dudes think.. its half egyptian and half russian board.
these guys hate the incumbents.. read this article dude...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...rticlecontent/

the guy says "We will make pain, and they will suffer"... LOL? i think they are a little pissed at the regulatory challenges the incumbents made for them back in 2008.
i would say it is a little personal for this guy to get a little pay back if he is gonna say that in a live interview.

[ceredon]

Coincidently AT&T was just discussing their desire to expand internationally. I guess they feel the US market might have peaked. I'd love to see Vodafone or Orange move here. Our carriers are some of the largest that have never attempted international expansion, which is odd. You'd think they'd want to grow their businesses. But they know how good they have it here. If foreign carriers and real competition are finally allowed then our carriers are going to ***** themselves.

Edit: this is the AT&T story I mentioned.
http://m.cnet.com/news/at&t-eyes-int...rowth/57564427

I would like 2 restrictions introduced if foreign carriers/ownership rules are removed:
1) no carrier with greater than 10 market share is allowed to sell majority stake to a foreign company. This would prevent Robellus from taking the easy way out and just selling out to US carriers that would leaving us in the same boat as now by allowing them to reduce competition.
2) a temporary prohibition on domestic carriers merging or otherwise consolidating. Again, this would be to prevent them attempting to reduce competition, which is the reason for allowing foreign carriers to begin with.

[_Allan_]

Coincidently AT&T was just discussing their desire to expand internationally. I guess they feel the US market might have peaked. I'd love to see Vodafone or Orange move here. Our carriers are some of the largest that have never attempted international expansion, which is odd. You'd think they'd want to grow their businesses. But they know how good they have it here. If foreign carriers and real competition are finally allowed then our carriers are going to ***** themselves.

Edit: this is the AT&T story I mentioned.
http://m.cnet.com/news/at&t-eyes-int...rowth/57564427

I would like 2 restrictions introduced if foreign carriers/ownership rules are removed:
1) no carrier with greater than 10 market share is allowed to sell majority stake to a foreign company. This would prevent Robellus from taking the easy way out and just selling out to US carriers that would leaving us in the same boat as now by allowing them to reduce competition.
2) a temporary prohibition on domestic carriers merging or otherwise consolidating. Again, this would be to prevent them attempting to reduce competition, which is the reason for allowing foreign carriers to begin with.

I like your idea for the 2 rules.

Otherwise, all I have to say is "BRING IT ON! I wanna go with t-Mo or even AT&T (like I did in 1998 with Cantel AT&T).

[WorldIRC]

also now that this is in play.
this opens up options for say... verizon, att and sprint or even any other international player to come in.
aren't you tired of 80 - 100 dollar phone bills? or stupidly priced internet?
it's time the real big boys are allowed to come in and show the entrenched what how its done.
these are the wind mobile canada's backers and soon to be full on control owners.

As a quick aside: ATT / Verizon charge $100 + / month for new iPhone / Android subscribers.
I'd certainly rather a EU carrier enter Canada instead of a US carrier.

[ceredon]

As a quick aside: ATT / Verizon charge $100 + / month for new iPhone / Android subscribers.
I'd certainly rather a EU carrier enter Canada instead of a US carrier.

Totally agree that I'd prefer a euro carrier(s).

But AT&T customers can get the iPhone 5 with a much lower monthly bill, albeit with lesser features. As low as $60 for a small data allotment and no messaging would still qualify ($50 for seniors).

[icemasta]

it means... real market competition coming to Canada.
more money from big boys and orascom and vimpelcom.
now your gonna see .05 cent per minute and .05 cent per txt plans n shiet like that.

Not necessarily. It's tough to say at this moment in time but I'm not ruling out an eventual sellout to the Big 3.

[kitty]

So now Wind Mobile has the "global financial resources" of Orascom and Vimpelcom to wage war against the big 3. Do we really think Vimpelcom/Orascom is going to pour in the billions of dollars it will take to fight the big 3 for a country of 10 million cell phone users just to have lower prices?

There might be lower cell phone rates while the war is in progress, but once Wind has joined the big 4 (they publicly stated goal), I expect rates will rise so they can have the lucrative profit margins that the big 3 currently enjoy. It would be stupid not to (from an investor/owner POV).

[Truemana]

Unfortunately, I just don't think Canada will ever see as cheap prices for phones as Europeans do. Population density, while not the only factor, is a huge factor in number of cell towers. Further, competition in Europe isn't as big as people think it is. I pay €17/month "prepaid" for 500mb and 500 sms/voice minutes (combined) in Germany. Roaming isn't cheap but isn't prohibitively expensive. There's only four carriers in Germany: Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, O2, and Base. Base is the cheapest, but only has an EDGE network. However, there's a bzillion MVNO's here, so that certainly helps competition.

There's more than four carriers in Canada and the prices have only gone down a bit. Maybe what the carriers were saying all these past years about infrastructure costs has some truth to it.

[Gee]

Wind will never be able to compete, even with the huge financial resources.

First, they can't operate in Quebec, that means they can only cover 70% of the population.
Second, unless they invest billions in infrastructure and increase the quality of service, they will never truly be a competitor

If they do invest in infrastructure, they will need to increase their prices to realise a return on investment. That will take them right to where the Big 3 are. With 70% coverage, why would you go with Wind?

[icemasta]

So now Wind Mobile has the "global financial resources" of Orascom and Vimpelcom to wage war against the big 3. Do we really think Vimpelcom/Orascom is going to pour in the billions of dollars it will take to fight the big 3 for a country of 10 million cell phone users just to have lower prices?

There might be lower cell phone rates while the war is in progress, but once Wind has joined the big 4 (they publicly stated goal), I expect rates will rise so they can have the lucrative profit margins that the big 3 currently enjoy. It would be stupid not to (from an investor/owner POV).

This is the year where we will see the direction Wind is likely to be heading.

Also, after dismissing all the 'conversation' promotional material from Wind, the whole intention for Wind was to capitalize on the relatively high potential ARPU in Canada. Don't forget Orascom's other mobile ventures ARPU is very low so I can see the desire to enter the Canadian market. In addition, Wind's introductory pricing shows this intention easily by them offering unlimited talk/text/data for an insane $80/month on a very small and highly infant network.

[TheRed]

Wind is getting more expensive from this year onward... Can they rise prices on currrent subscribers?

[gilboman]

it means... real market competition coming to Canada.
more money from big boys and orascom and vimpelcom.
now your gonna see .05 cent per minute and .05 cent per txt plans n shiet like that.

No. Wind is horrible and worst customer service than the big 3 with much inferior product and high pricing for the 3rd tier service they provide.

Only a fool would think they are good news lol