Canada is Going to Get Interesting....

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by AndreA

Why not?

Just curiosity

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.

[bylo]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

(Fido) folded and was bought by the other GSM carrier, Rogers

I'm not sure they "folded" but yes, they were bought out by Rogers. Similarly Clearnet was the CDMA price leader until they were bought out by Telus. One strategy for a new entrant is to grow in urban markets until they too are bought out by an incumbent.

BTW a new entrant would be crazy to not use GSM. Indeed, Bell and Telus are at such a disadvantage to Rogers because they're still on CDMA that they both now offer a "World" BlackBerry that has CDMA plus quadband GSM so that their lucrative business users will stay with them but still be able to use their phones when travelling outside of Canada. I'm sure that if Bell and Telus could redo their decision to go CDMA they'd choose GSM instead.

Note too that the CRTC requires the incumbents to lease towers to the new entrants for at least 5 years so as to give them the ability to compete without having to immediately build their entire network from scratch.

[PhotoJim]

Originally Posted by bylo

BTW a new entrant would be crazy to not use GSM. Indeed, Bell and Telus are at such a disadvantage to Rogers because they're still on CDMA that they both now offer a "World" BlackBerry that has CDMA plus quadband GSM so that their lucrative business users will stay with them but still be able to use their phones when travelling outside of Canada. I'm sure that if Bell and Telus could redo their decision to go CDMA they'd choose GSM instead.

The one thing that makes me wonder about this is the issue of US roaming. Canadians are far more likely to go to the US than they are to go to any other country. In many parts of the US, GSM coverage is really quite dreadful. If a prospective new Canadian carrier is more concerned about US roaming than it is about worldwide roaming and inexpensive telephone and radio availability, it might well choose CDMA. (Frankly I hope this doesn't happen, but it's very possible.)