Wirelessnorth.ca

And other things learned from Anthony Lacavera

Globalive CEO Tony Lacavera made a public appearance today at Mobile Monday Toronto, to talk about Wind, and where they go from here. You may recall that the CRTC has. for now, shut down Globalive’s wireless venture within what would have been weeks of their launch. The exact same wireless venture that another branch of government, Industry Canada, was more than happy enough to take 450M CAD of their money in exchange for a big chunk of spectrum.

• According to Tony, Canada is still effectively a series of provincial duopolies (2 carrier concentration of 80-90% in most markets), with the 3rd highest costs and least customer satisfaction in the world. What we need is competition.
• Globalive is not pleased to be missing Christmas but is pushing ahead, expanding the network, keeping staff on while they sort through with the CRTC and industry Canada
• Tony is not yet acknowledging the possibility of not launching
• CRTC’s reversal came after globalive were legally approved by both Industry Canada and Dept of Finance. The CRTC’s choice was not one of law but a subjective decision, says Tony, and we disagree with their interpretation.
• Tony played up the charity work globalive employees have been doing – “has made our culture so much stronger”
• Wind (The globalive wireless brand) plans to launch with “all unlimited plans, no contracts, no catches*”
• Other than the catch that data will have some limits, or at least large buckets (this is not so unreasonable)
• Tony is keen on cool ideas like open application platforms. Although we don’t know what that means from a carrier perspective exactly.
• Wind will launch with blackberries (the latest) and other smartphones but not the iphone yet
• Asked about whether Canada should scrap foreign ownership rules – no says they are still important from a broadcast and cultural perspective
• What Tony really means is that Globalive doesn’t need (to wait for) legislation to change for them to launch

A few great, and essentially unanswered yet questions from the audience:

1) Globalive (and the likes of Quebecor) are more clearly intent on building long-term sustainable businesses, but how well will they compete against kamakazie marketshare strategies of any of the pure new entrants who could, potentially, be intent on gaining-marketshare-at-any-cost strategies in order to flip their businesses at the end of five years? (e.g. when the spectrum exclusivity rules for new entrants come off)

2) How does the UK wireless industry (for example, pick any G8 country) perform so well and competitively without the benefit of Canadian-style foreign ownership? Why does Canada keep such good company as Burma, Iran, North Korea in sheltering our wireless industry from international competition?