Canada is Going to Get Interesting....

[Motel75]

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).

[PhotoJim]

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.

[Stu]

I liked the original FIDO, but the company never really seemed to be ready for prime time. It took them years to build out the system between London and Windsor. Windsor a city of 250,000 didn't get a company store for five years (and then under Rogers).

MVNOs such as Virgin seem to be making it in Canada. Clearly Canadians are taxed at a much higher rate than in the US. Clearly these cost have also caused most US carriers to cancel Canada roaming plans. The original ATT, Cingular, and Verizon all pulled their Canada roaming plans. Canadian plans that roam at no extra charge in the US are massively expensive. Similarly, wireless data rates in Canada are very high. (Bell Mobility just came out with a $7 a month data plan that might make me a liar).

MVNO's like Virgin are doing ok in Canada. Also there has been some movement in terms of free incoming on Rogers and My Faves on Rogers and Telus.

In sum, I think there is room for a well managed and well funded competitor to compete. My concern, however, is that under the guise of "preserving Canadian culture" or some other excuse, Canada will lock out a well healed and aggressive competitor and give the licenses to a home grown cludge.

I'd love to see Voda, Hutchison, etc. come in there and beat the tail off some of these incumbents. For example, I don't think one Canadian carrier offers a phone targeted at the Chinese population. Cantonese prompts, HK centered web pages, cheap roaming in HK would target a massive affluent population in Canada, but I don't think anyone is doing it.

What about something like the original FIDO which had $0.25 a minute roaming in the US?

[DRNewcomb]

I agree that Fido didn't work very well, but you'd think that someone like T-Mobile or Vodafone would have seen the opportunity and snatched them up rather than letting them drop like a rotten fruit into Rogers' backet. Assuming that there really is an opportunity there?

[Stu]

Don,

Canadian law has traditionally stopped foreign ownership of their mobile industry. A foreign company could be a minority share holder but to the best of my recollection is that a minority stake couldn't be 49%. That was how we got Cantel ATT, then Rogers ATT, now just plain old Rogers.

In my opinion whatever arguments you can make about preserving Canadian culture in broadcast media really doesn't apply to cellphones. The primary purpose of a phone is communication, not cultural enlightenment. The infotainment that they offer is largely purchased. For example, Telus offers XM radio on their phones.

Any provider in the Canadian market place would be a fool to ignore the regional and cultural preferences of their customers. T-Mobile clearly tailors their product for their market. They are not going to release a German language only system in the United States. It would cost them huge market share.

Any provider in Canada will at least support English and French, will offer Canadian news, Canadian weather, CFL results, and unless they were completely suicidal HOCKEY!

Yoou beth-cha, Ah!

Stu

[Malkav]

I for one would love to see something along the line of 'Three canada' but with cs based inside canadaland!

just think three breaching the NA market!

Also i think canada moving away from cdma would be a good way to harmonise the transitions maybe the canadian network licenses should state that the new networks must be gsm baes, the UK networks have had a history of offering sim only packs encouraging the re-use of unused gsm handsets!

[Effendi]

Any news from Canada?

Today I read this on an Italian newspaper:

Da pochi giorni Orascom è sbarcata in Canada?
Sì. Recentemente abbiamo acquisito una licenza per i servizi wireless, è un mercato molto interessante perché ha una penetrazione solo del 60%, un unico operatore Gsm e due Cdma, oltre a un Arpu molto alto, fra i 50 e 60 dollari.

it seems that Orascom Telecom (owner of Wind) bought a license in Canada... time to see Wind CA?

[PhotoJim]

Here is the brief synopsis:

- the incumbents bought lots of new spectrum
- we are going to have one new national carrier likely: Yak. It bought spectrum everywhere in Canada except southern Quebec. Quebecor bought huge amounts of spectrum throughout Quebec and none outside. A joint venture, a favourable roaming agreement or a merger of these two carriers is highly likely. With each other, they could have great coverage nationwide.
- there are some regional players: Shaw Communications, Data and Audio-Visual, Eastlink (an Atlantic Canada cable operation), etc. Canada is ready for some regional carriers; some favourable roaming agreements could do wonders here.

All these carriers will be using 1700 MHz spectrum. There are few phones that currently support it, unfortunately. There will be more.

The incumbent CDMA carriers are of interest. No one knows what technology they will deploy. There are strong rumours that they are going to shift to UMTS/HSPA or LTE.

Rogers, the existing GSM provider, will deploy UMTS/HSPA almost certainly. It is widely believed that all the new carriers will do the same.

It's expected that the new carriers could be on the air as soon as Easter 2009.

[Motel75]

Interesting. Re: the earlier comments, Vodafone Fiji is only 49 percent owned by Vodafone, with the rest owned by the Fijian government (who seem content to let Voda run the show). Og Vodafone in Iceland isn't owned by Vodafone at all, but operates on something like a franchise arrangement. I don't know how applicable these arrangements would be to Canada, but the 49 percent rule is just plain silly, even if they're afraid of having everything being swallowed up by, and operated as extensions of, large US companies.

OTOH, Voda once owned tele.ring in Austria, a very small carrier, and were (stupidly) advised by McKinsey & Company to ditch it, as they should only ever be the largest or second-largest company in each market, rather than try to grow a business. Result: No Voda presence at all in Austria. But it shows they'd probably not go with a start-up business.

[Effendi]

Yak Communications, owned by Globalive Communications Corp. is the group including Orascom Telecom.