Canada is Going to Get Interesting....
 

According to CBC, the Canadian Government just cracked the Canadian market wide open by providing for five new carriers:

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/11/28/auction.html

Well they had 4 in each market then Fido got sucked into Rogers. I'm not sure Canada has the customer base to support that many carriers.

Well, here's a chance for Vodafone to enter the North American market under its own name...

Vodafone has been pulling out of non-EU markets (e.g. Japan). I'm not sure that they are still pursuing their global branding approach.

Not really, they ditched Japan and Sweden because they were losing money and activist short-term-oriented shareholders were getting restless at the share price, so Arun Sarin had to appease them (the cash from Vodafone Japan, sold at a $5 bn loss, was handed out as a special dividend). The move into India and the likely takeover of Vodacom in South Africa suggests they'll still go for expansion if it's a growth market, and Canada still is. Probably won't happen, though, but it would be nice to see a new big GSM player in North America (ie, not one of the big American companies and not some ad-hoc investor creation).

Why not?

Just curiosity :)

most of its sparse population live within 200km of the US border, and 90% of canada is pretty sparse....even moose feel lonely out there!

also these new canadian mobile companies, i bet there going to be CDMA (EWWWWW) not GSM!

though i bet Vodafone Australia and Vodafone NZ are a bit shocked about that to!

Canada only has about 60% mobile penetration... at the right price (and whether that is possible is a viable question) there is a lot of room for a new mobile carrier or two to be successful, IMHO.

Canada had four* carriers (sounds a bit like Italy) but the 4th one (Fido) folded and was bought by the other GSM carrier, Rogers. Had there been an adequate market for four carriers Fido would have made a better showing. I just don't hear anyone from Canada saying, "We need more wireless carriers."

*I lump all the regional cellular carriers (Alliant, Bell, NWT?) together as one.