THURSDAY SAW THE continued condemnation of the federal government’s wireless policies by three of the country’s telecom executives as they reported their quarterly results.
Each of Quebecor CEO Robert Dépatie, BCE CEO George Cope and Telus CEO Darren Entwistle used their second quarter 2013 conference calls with financial analysts to take additional public shots at the federal government, whose 700 MHz auction rules coupled with altered AWS spectrum transfer conditions seem poised to give American cellco Verizon an easy, cheap way into the Canadian market. That assumes reports that the American company hopes to purchase Wind Canada are true and…
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WHILE THE LOBBYING intensifies here as everyone awaits word on whether Verizon will venture north in advance of the 700 MHz spectrum auction, the American cellco is doing lobbying of its own, Stateside, as the industry there prepares for a spectrum auction in the 600 MHz band.
A research report which is part of the U.S. wireless industry’s lobbying efforts actually casts doubt on our own government’s assertion it is bringing more competition to the Canadian wireless market with restrictive auction rules.
Scotia Capital analyst Jeff Fan noted in a report to clients what could be…
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TORONTO – With Wind Mobile’s announcement today of a new “24-month pay off promise plan,” the carrier has joined incumbents such as Telus in introducing and promoting two-year contracts, which is the maximum length for a contract set out by the new Wireless Code going into effect later this year.
Effective today, the new service applies to all WINDtab activations and hardware upgrades. Wind says it will clear any remaining WINDtab balance after 24 months.
All aspects of the WINDtab program will remain the same, with no changes to current rate plans and no increase…
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A WACKY LONG WEEKEND of published and advertised wireless truths, half-truths, information and disinformation has likely moved the public opinion needle on Verizon’s potential entry into Canada not at all.
With the federal government seeming to have said its final word on the matter last week – noting it will stick by the screwy rules it has set up (rather than full, open, foreign investment in Canadian telecom) to govern the Canadian wireless market – the incumbent wireless companies, as well as their supporters and detractors, went into full froth over the August Civic Holiday weekend.
On…
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NETWORK EXPANSION NEWS
Recent launches:
Telus invests $600,000 for coverage along Vancouver Island highway
COWICHAN VALLEY, B.C. – Telus announced today it has invested $600,000 to bring new wireless coverage to more than eight kilometers of the Island Highway between Shawnigan Mill Bay Road and Lakeside Road located on the southern part of Vancouver Island.
The project is part of the 10-year Connecting British Columbia agreement signed with the Province of B.C. in 2011. Under the terms of the agreement Telus will connect more than 1,700 kilometres of unconnected highways with wireless service.
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IT WOULD SEEM THAT THE all-hands on deck round of public pleading from our big wireless companies will not shake our meddlesome federal government from its wireless policy path. After all, there are no votes in it for Ottawa to alter course – and potentially big, big money in simply plowing ahead.
As everyone knows, the most recent Canadian spectrum auction in 2008 brought five new wireless companies to life in Wind Mobile, Public Mobile, Mobilicity, Videotron Wireless and EastLink Wireless. Regulatory intervention set aside some spectrum then which was purchased more cheaply than that which…
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TORONTO, MONTREAL, and VANCOUVER – Industry Minister James Moore made it official yesterday that Ottawa was not going to budge on its wireless policy framework, but that hasn’t put an end to the public lobbying campaign mounted by Canada’s Big Three incumbents, who issued new pleas today calling on the federal government to close what they say are loopholes that give preferential treatment to major US wireless carriers.
Bell, Rogers, and Telus each issued press releases Thursday urging Ottawa to reconsider the wireless rules that currently would allow a U.S. carrier like…
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OTTAWA – Saying the Minister of Industry has no right to change the policies governing the 2008 Advanced Wireless Spectrum auction now, Telus has filed an application in Federal Court asking for a judicial review of the June 28th spectrum transfer policy framework released by then-Industry Minister Christian Paradis.
(We predicted such a legal backlash in April when Industry Canada told the Canadian wireless companies then that it wanted to add new restrictions on the sale of wireless spectrum that had been cleared to be sold after a…
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TORONTO –Telus’s new two-year phone plans are available as of today, effectively replacing all previous three-year plans from the carrier.
The new Telus SharePlus plans feature unlimited nationwide talk and text and the ability to share data with multiple subscribers on the same account. Customers can choose their own mobile device (which comes with unlimited talk and text), and then select from a range of data plans starting at $15 for 250MB.
Since first announcing the new plans two weeks ago, Telus has actually reduced rates for its higher-end 3GB, 6GB, and 10GB data…
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WATERLOO, ON – BlackBerry announced Tuesday that its latest BB 10 smartphone, the BlackBerry Q5, will be available in Canada on August 13.
First announced at BlackBerry’s annual conference in May, LINK LINK LOINK the new Q5 features a re-engineered QWERTY keyboard for faster and more accurate typing.
Available in black or red, the Q5 features a dual core 1.2GHz processor, a 3.1-inch touchscreen, 8GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, and 4G/LTE network support.
The…
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