Wirelessnorth.ca

Sorry we’re a few days late on the news, but here you are, some more good news on a new wireless entrant in Canada. Taking our catchprase “great wireless north” very seriously is RuralCom:

The proposed Alaska Highway Network will provide nearly contiguous coverage along 1,685 km. (1,047 mi.) of the Alaska Highway from Wonowon, BC to Beaver Creek, YT on the Alaska-Yukon Territory border. Communities to be served will include Fort Nelson, BC, Watson Lake, YT and Whitehorse, YT.

RuralCom’s proposed network along the BC North Coast will provide nearly contiguous coverage along the BC Inside Passage waterway from just north ofVancouver Island to the Alaska-BC border. BC communities served will include Bella Bella, Masset, Queen Charlotte City and Prince Rupert . The area served will also provide service to the 1.8 million cruise ship passengers traveling to and from Alaska during the May-October season.

From a policy perspective, you could count this one as a win for feds, as far as using the auction to encourage some mobile services in some hensewise underserved places. On the flip side though, the PR so far seems to suggest (now becoming a familiar refrain) an emphasis on talk and text service.

So your life-long dream and drop everything, buy a young malamute and hit the road streaming mobile broadband from the sidecar of your motor-bike the whole way up the yukon trail, may have to wait a little longer.

From a business perspective the model seems like a clever way for Ruralcom to also scoop some lucrative roaming revenues from tourists and Americans to and from Alaska as so forth. We do have a few questions though, drop us a note if you have more info: Does Ruralcom have any spectrum outside of AWS, or will only new AWS handsets get coverage? It must be a neat trick to provision basestation power and backhaul that far up the Yukon’s wazoo, there must be some interesting/clever stories there?

Protip: North of sixty, remote alternatives like solar power have some serious drawbacks some parts of the year…

Link: RuralCom Corporation to provide cell phone service to the Alaska Highway and the BC North Coast

People often ask us about Look Communications. What’s up with Look, or what are they going to do with all the spectrum they have? What’s it good for? Well the only reason we at WirelessNorth.ca have held back on answering that question is that we don’t have a frickn’ clue.

Well, here’s some new news. Thanks to Edward for passing this on (He adds “I can’t believe you haven’t reported this yet”)

Look Communications Inc. (“Look” or the “Corporation”) (TSX Venture: LOK and LOK.A) received overwhelming shareholder support today for its Plan of Arrangement which will permit the orderly sale of all or substantially all of Look’s assets, in whole or in part, in order to maximize shareholder value.

1. Spectrum – Approximately 100MHz of contiguous licensed spectrum in Ontario and Quebec covering approximately 18 million people (1.8 billion MHz/Pops);

2. Broadcast License – A Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”) mobile broadcast license which has been renewed by the CRTC to August 2011;

3. Subscribers – Approximately 30,000 broadcast and Internet subscribers;

4. Network – A network consisting of two network operating centers (Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec), 26 one-way broadcast sites and 10 two-way broadcast sites; and

5. Tax Attributes – Approximately $300 million in tax attributes. The Corporation is willing to consider cash, debt, convertible equity, common equity or any combination in exchange for its assets.

As far as we know the spectrum look has (had) is 100MHz (that’s a lot in spectrum terms) of WiMax-ey spectrum in the 2.5Ghz range. And we all know how wimax technology has turned out so far (not so good Aktly). Once they great wireless hope of 2005, wimax has been beset with problems, super-clunky hardware, radio waves that don’t go through buildings so good, mobile-wimax standards and equipment missing in action etc.

Maybe you can do better? We can guarantee that in this economy, Look’s spectrum will come a lot cheaper than the four-odd billion all those cowboys just spent on Canada’s last 100MHz spectrum auction.

What Look appears to be betting on is that it’s assets are worth more apart than they are together within Look. They are betting on the new entrants (but who lets be honest probably aren’t flush with extra cash right now) will need more spectrum to be truly successful in offering any rich data and media applications long term.

They’re also betting on new mobile wimax chipset availability (finally) and future convergence of wimax and 2.5+GHz spectrum and standards with celular 4G technology (it’s supposed to happen).

link: Look CEO’s slidedeck to shareholders pdf

As widely reported in the dead tree media this morning, spectrum auction underdog BMV has secured an additional 50M in backing to rollout

” Low-cost wireless carrier BMV Holdings (“BMV”) today announced that OMERS Private Equity, the private equity arm of the OMERS Worldwide group of companies, has signed an agreement to invest up to $50 million in the business. BMV will launch value-priced wireless services to Canadians in specific markets in Ontario and Quebec during the third quarter of 2009.”

Speculative wireless ventures clearly being seen as a good an investment as any these days.

For you, dear reader, this is a good news/bad news story. The good news is a scrappy new startup is now a lot closer to effectively complete rollout (in Quebec and Ontario). And competition has to be good right?

Well the bad news is, essentially, – no make that literally- this is your grandmama’s cell phone service. That’s who BMV is targeting. “The great unsubscribed”. Cheap phones, old-old-school CDMA technology, talk and text only, forget about data.

So what are you to do? Here’s the plan. Switch your high-end bell/telus/Rogers 3G plan to a data-only plan to keep your shiny smart phone applications humming (and sidestep the big-three’s increasingly egregious voice pricing). Step 2: buy up some dirt cheap minutes and a secondary handset from BMV or one of the other low-end entrant (you can bring the number with number portability) for those obscure occasions when you want a mobile device for… what’s that called again… oh yes “making phone calls”.

Call your Grandma. She misses you.

Earlier on WirelessNorth.ca: New Entrant: BMV’s bets big on bargain spectrum

First up, big thanks to the MEIC for inviting WirelessNorth.ca to take part in their launch party at OCAD last week and share the stage with Anthony Lacavera of Globalive and Dominique Sebastien Forest of Quebecor.

First you have to remember that Quebecor is not just a very disruptive player in the Quebec cable and home phone market, they’re also a significant media company across Canada. They also bought a nice chunk of spectrum (only) in Quebec – much more spectrum than then you’d ever need to just sell talk and text to everyone in la belle province. Bear these facts in mind.

You can be sure Quebecer’s talk to people and consume a reasonable amount of content from around the rest of Canada and the rest of the world. But also be sure that Quebecers, especially the majority francophone Quebecois also are interested in talking to folks, publishing, sharing, and consuming content that originate entirely locally. Think about how much more nicely contained content distribution and network traffic would be in Quebec compared to any other jurisdiction in Canada. Now imagine the nifty economies of scope for a savvy quadruple-threat telco AND major content producer/distributor that really understands the Quebec market with a major presence across every type screen and handset. Bear that in mind too.

Dominique led off with a pretty cool presentation on the transformative effect of mobile technology as a rich media device. He talked about how users were now “at the center” and in control of their mobile and media experience. But he also seemed to be framing mobile as a boon to marketers and for ad-supported content. The theory being that unlike old crude models of marketing to demographics, mobile allows you to really understand and finely segment your audience by “clouds” of commonalities of where you’ve been, what you like, who you’re connected to etc. Pretty cool. Or maybe these prospects freak you out.

Quebecor has a reputation for being disruptive. However, if you were hoping for just big fat dumb pipe, it sure doesn’t sound like that.

Second you should remember that Globalive is Yak. A successful (1M subscribers) discount long distance player for consumers fed up with big telco long distance bill. Next remember that Globalive has spectrum spanning almost all of Canada, but to get that they spread themselves thin in terms of spectrum bandwidth.

Anthony spoke to the rough deals that Canadians have been subjected to. He explicit that globalive will be starting out at the opposite end of the spectrum from Quebecor. Cheap, no-strings, no-contract phone plans targeted at first-time cellular subscribers, existing yak long distance customers and disgruntled customers of the big 3.

Over questions we able to glean a little bit more about the plans of each carrier. Here’s what we know so far:

Quebecor’s launch date uncertain (later in 2009 we’d wager)
Technology uncertain but something GSM-based (HSDPA 7.2 most likely but who knows. 14.4 does exist)
Will be media-centric, will be going after high end and media/data services not just talk and text
But… remember smart phone device availability on AWS spectrum is still thin. (Android G1 being the only AWS smartphone we know of and that’s exclusive to Tmobile so far)
Primary market is going to be Quebec and existing videotron base
What, if any, services they will offer with their (thinner) spectrum licensees Ontario they won’t say

Globalive could be launching as early as this June (but we think it will take a little longer)
Technology will be GSM-based, HSPA
Launching first in a handful of major cities.
Think City-fido type plans
Think fido/solo/koodo killer plans
Think basic feature phones not smart phones
Anthony would like to offer data-only plans, and all kind of innovative stuff, but don’t expect it soon (maybe if they survive to bid in the next spectrum auction?)

So stop me if you’ve heard this one: A dog, a lizard and a yak walk into a bar….

As the CEO of Globalive, the winner of the largest geographical amount of the wireless spectrum auction, Anthony Lacavera started off by encouraging the audience at this month’s Mobile Monday meeting to ask him the controversial questions. He is the first CEO of a wireless company to speak to a MoMoTO crowd, and it appeared that he didn’t want to hide behind the messaging in a glossy marketing package.

Many may not know Globalive, but will likely be aware of their home phone and long distance services that operate under the name of Yak. Yak will soon be offering wireless service to it’s 1 million customers, as well as trying to get some of the unsatisfied customers from the other companies to come over to their side of the fence.

So what is Yak going to do with their $442 million share of the wireless spectrum? Yak will be launching their service in late 2009 to five Canadian cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa. They are going to be targeting their existing customer base, providing them with the same customer service they have become accustomed to in their home and long distance services. They’ll scoop up some dissatisfied customers from the existing cell phone companies, and they’ll try really, really, really hard to make them happy. They’re also going to be targeting the almost 40% of Canadians that don’t already have cell phones, which is perhaps a market that Rogers, Bell, and Telus have long forgotten about.

When the auctions were first announced, many people were hoping that new wireless service providers would break the big players, shaking them to the ground. With Yak coming into the picture, it doesn’t seem that we’ll be saying good-bye to Rogers, Bell or Telus anytime soon.

Yak intends to start off by competing with the smaller wireless companies of Fido, Solo and Koodoo. Even though we won’t see them square off with the Big 3 right away, Tony says that the consumers are already seeing the effects of having a new competitor in the market. New plans have already been announced that remove the system access fees, and allow customers to carry over their minutes to the next month. Tony also said that Yak will be exploring options that have worked in other countries to help stimulate a more competitive wireless market in Canada, a country whose wireless service ranks as the most expensive worldwide.

Tony spoke about the challenges that face them, most of which will come from getting Bell, Rogers and Telus to co-operate with them. Yak would like to be able to share some space on the physical towers that are currently owned by the other companies, but has been given a slew of excuses as to why that won’t work. One example he gave was that he was told the towers couldn’t support the weight of new equipment. He also mentioned some concern about getting roaming to work across the country when Yak’s customers are outside their service areas. Eventually he said, the co-operation from the other companies may only come in the form of government regulated rules since there is no incentive for them to play nice.

It’ll be a GSM network [ed- is that HSPA or just "GSM"?] . They have the AWS part of the spectrum, which means that only phones with AWS capability will work on their network. They are anticipating for 1.5 million users within the first 3 years. (Notice that I didn’t call them subscribers, since Yak won’t have any contracts.)

One thing that struck me about Tony was that he seemed to truly recognize that the customers are the real strength behind any wireless company. He related to us stories about how he continues to call Yak’s customers as a customer service rep, just to make sure he stays in touch with his customers. When he started talking to people about wireless service, and he realized just how much people wanted to express their opinion, he had the idea of creating a website where people can talk about wireless service in an unmoderated forum. That was when the Wireless Soapbox (http://www.wirelesssoapbox.ca) was created, and it’s pretty apparent that he genuinely would like to hear what Canadians have to say about their wireless service.

While there was no shortage of questions for Tony, in the end, the tough and controversial questions didn’t come; on member commented that there weren’t any tough questions to ask. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what happens with their service when they launch Yak Mobile in late 2009 – you’ll be seeing their phones appear in retail stores nationwide.

My remaining question: how can I get out of my 3 year contract with Rogers so I can switch to Yak if I decide I’d like to do that?

- Big thanks to James Eberhardt of Echo Mobile for this report from momotoronto

And then there was another one. Hot off the presses at the Post: Bitove taps president of wireless venture

The satellite radio and fast-food entrepreneur has tapped Dave Dobbin, the 38-year-old former Toronto Hydro Telecom president, to be president for his budding wireless venture, Data and Audio-Visual Enterprises (DAVE) Wireless, sources have confirmed to the Financial Post.

Mr. Dobbin is considered by many industry insiders to be a blue-chip executive that has shaken up the industry with two municipal-based telecommunications businesses and has the potential to aggressively elbow DAVE Wireless into the highly competitive wireless market.

“He’s known as a bit of a maverick,” said one telecom analyst who declined to be named.

WirelessNorth.ca had a chance to sit down with Dave almost a year ago and we came away both impressed, and with a delightful earful on the state and capabilities (or lack thereof) of the incumbent telcom networks in Canada. Anyway, congrats and good luck in the new gig with DAVE Dave.

DAVE is the one new entrant we saw as a wildcard amongst the new entrants. Not quite national, but they bought up spectrum in mostly urban areas in the west and Ontario.

Here’s the next big question. With more new and overlapping entrants officially announcing, are they really all going to build out each their own network or will the sharing agreements be coming next? it would make a LOT of of sense, if the new guys can come to terms. If even Bell and Telus need to do it…

The new entrant formerly known as 6934579 Canada Inc. (or on this blog as the Tirabassi mystery co.) has come clean on their plans for the Canadian Market. You may recall that 6934579 was an entrant than came out swinging early in the auction before settling on an somewhat oddball piece of spectrum (the G band) just off to the right of the main AWS band. A corner of spectrum poo-pooed by the big GSM players like Nokia/Ericson as orphan spectrum not really useful for anything. But apparently not so…

Alek Krstajic the new CEO of of BMV Holdings (real brand name TBD) gave us a call yesterday to spill the story on their big plans for Gband..

His take is that the other entrants “blew their brains out” spending far too much for too little spectrum. The encumbents “must feel like they dodged a bullet” Alek believes. The 10MHz G band is pretty tiny itself but by loading it up with cheap CDMA (yes you read that right) equipment, offer only talk and text (yes only talk and text) and he figures they can capture 1.8M subscribers across Ontario and Quebec

CDMA also has some advantages of a narrow channel width than GSM/HSPA making it easier for them to manage the network and future upgrades without having to switch off current subscribers (a problem other new entrants with only 10MHz could have).

BMV’s other big advantage is low cost. By going for G band they spent a tenth of what Quebecor or Globalive (“those guys will drowning in debt”) spent on spectrum. Combine that with vintage CDMA equipment from the Qualcom bargain bin and you have, maybe, a low cost winner.

Here’s the plan they will be offering: $40 flat rate unlimited local talk and text. Launching (Alek you’ve locked down that financing right?) mid 2009 in Quebec and Ontario. Not unlike Metro PCS which you may know of from the Sanfran/Bay Are (BMV’s backers where behind metro PCS too).

Is BMV designed as a koodo killer (Cheap service, basic phones, CDMA etc.)? Alek says they aren’t. “Koodo is splashing billboards all over Toronto with messages like ‘dump the systeme access fee’” Alek says the folk’s he’s targeting are new cell phone have no idea what a system access fee is because they haven’t had a phone before. Koodo is all about capturing churn whereas BMV will be growing the pie. Remember Canada is still a very under-penetrated wireless market.

So this isn’t a koodo killer so much as a landline killer. BCE be worried. Why pay likely more than $40/month for a local phone tethered to an ancient bit of copper when you could get a mobile equivalent for the same or lesser price?

Good for Alek and BMV to be shaking the industry up a little. The downside? This is not an innovation story. This is not growing the market for smartphones (“if you want a smart phone, no problem, go
visit my friend Pierre Karl Péladeau says Alek”) or mobile content or mobile experience innovation in Canada. Two steps forward, one step back.

For those keeping score:

++ for new competition
+ for getting mobile phones in the hands of more Canadians
+ for keeping the big guys honest at the low end
- for putting 90′s-era mobile technology in the hands of more Canadians
– for the reality check on the long road still ahead for new entrants

Videotron, Gloabalive (more or less) and now BMV have announced their plans, still waiting for Eastlink, Shaw (not soon?), DAVE and more…

Photo credit: flickr – woodleywonderworks

With full page ads in this weekend’s papers and a press conference earlier this week, Videotron (Quebecor) has announced their new Wireless network to be built on the Spectrum they purchased earlier this year. It’s not exactly a surprise that they will be putting the spectrum to use, but it is good to hear it announced officially (of the new entrants, only Videotron and Globalive have announced rollout plans so far). The network will be HSPA like everybody else (not waiting for LTE) and these HSPA signals should start wiggling their way across Quebecor’s airwaves by mid 2010. The bad news (or not good yet news) for Ontarians is that Videotron has said anything yet about expanding beyond Quebec (though they do hold a bunch of spectrum in southern and eastern Ontario.

Videotron already has about 55k cellphone subscribers in Quebec under an MNVO arrangement with Rogers which they will be migrating over to the new network.

Link: Quebecor launching new cellphone network

The news is spilling over the interwebs that the first Google Android handset is close to (finally) seeing the light of day. Long maligned by the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and everyone else as mere vapourware, it’s now decidedly looking less and less vapourous. The first model is the HTC Dream (nice name). Supposedly to materialize between November and January, depending on your level of optimism. In any case, the dream really exists, it just passed FCC trials. You may remember it took similar time for Apple’s first iPhone to move from FCC to production and launch.

The significance for north of the border? The first handset directly supports the same 1700MHz 3G band (AWS) just auctioned in Canada (thanks T-mobile). An entirely hypothetical bonus, at least until any/all players get around to rolling out service on the shiny new ether. But one hopes a sign of good things to come. Mmmm open handsets, open mobile platforms. The idea almost makes us misty.

^{[Introducing our newest contributor Ted Copewistle. In this post, his brave predictions on what the spectrum auction means for the wireless industry in Canada. Everyone is entitled to their opinions (for an earful, just ask the real Ted) and conjectures, but we at WirelessNorth.ca think there's some truth in this one. Enjoy. ]}

It’s going to be an interesting couple of years.  Here’s how it’s probably going to play out:

The Cartel (also known as “the incumbents”)

Bell and TELUS

Bell and TELUS will launch GSM (well, UMTS – that means some form of HSPA for the data focused folks) in the next 18 months together.  They’ll do a coordinated rollout.  TELUS will most likely focus on Alberta, BC, and probably Quebec (including Ottawa) and Bell will take the rest of the country.  Both probably won’t touch their AWS spectrum until 3 or 4 years, and even then they will most likely launch services just to fulfill licensing conditions.  TELUS has a wack of spectrum across the country thanks to the Clearnet buyout in 2000.   They have lots of room left on their existing spectrum – they are only using 36% of it at 1900MHz in their busiest market (Toronto), which means they have ample space to launch a 5MHz UMTS channel at 1900MHz nationwide.  Bell doesn’t enjoy such a rich spectrum position at 1900MHz but they have enough to launch as well.  What’s the upside of launching at 1900MHz?  Well, it gives both Bell and TELUS access to a lot of devices (iPhone anyone?) immediately.  They would love to have core coverage up and running in the major markets by the end of this year, but they are still finalizing vendors, so it’s doubtful they’ll be successful.

Rogers

Rogers is Rogers.  They’re sitting pretty and have a huge head start.  Their downfall will be their arrogance, which is bigger than the Sky… I mean, Rogers Centre.  And it’s only getting bigger.

NKOTWB (New Kids on the Wireless Bloc)

Videotron

As far as the new entrants go, Videotron will make a big splash in Quebec.  Them getting Toronto spectrum was a smart move too.  Expect them to take a chunk from the incumbents through aggressive bundling as they did with their home phone offering.  Quebecers are fiercely nationalistic, and any illusions of Bell being a Quebec company based out of Montreal are long gone.  Back in the old days, Bell Mobility had 65% market share in Quebec versus Cantel/Rogers.  Fido took a decent chunk of that, but barely made a dent in the rest of the country. Most Fido customers were in Quebec and Toronto.  That’s why Videotron focused their auction dollars where they did.

Shaw

Shaw will do next to nothing.  They may or may not launch a network, but if they do, they will go for high ARPU customers, and will focus on city coverage and rely on roaming in rural areas.  Rumour has it they have already signed a roaming agreement in intent and a tower sharing agreement with Rogers.  $80 all you can eat voice and data in-territory anyone?  Save an extra 5% if you bundle!

Globalive

Globalive will do okay, but they’ll quickly run out of capital unless foreign ownership restrictions are lifted. Think “new Fido”.  They’ll be aggressive and most likely establish a rabid following of customers in places like Toronto and Vancouver, but they’ll be hard pressed to make money.  Look for them to resell their services to others (such as Videotron) and to use the Wind brand that Weather Investments uses in Europe. They will also wrongly think that their Yak brand will have legs and leverage that as a discount brand. Everyone’s gotta have one, after all.  Apparently.

DAVE

DAVE is a curious play (put up a website already!) but I wouldn’t underestimate them.  They are successfully flying under everyone’s radar, which isn’t a bad thing right now.  Bitove is successful guy, and he’ll leverage the distribution and marketing experience of his XM Canada business to drive things early.  They’ll be a niche player, but fully expect them to leverage another global brand, as he has done in the chicken (KFC), pizza (Pizza Hut), mexican food (Taco Bell), and satellite businesses.  It could be anyone, but they’ll probably try for Three, Orange, Vodafone, or T-Mobile.  ”Kentucky Fried Wireless” gets my vote.

Bragg (Eastlink)

Bragg will do okay in their region, and their strategy will be more in the vein of Videotron than Shaw.

An easy guess is that all of these regional players (save Globalive, perhaps) will form a national alliance, similar to Mobility Canada and the North American GSM alliance in the old days.  It’ll be the easiest way for them to provide service pseudo nationally while only leveraging Rogers (and eventually TELUS and Bell) for rural coverage when necessary.

Who wins?

Rogers will, as long as they don’t become complacent and keep their newly acquired arrogance at bay (e.g. Bell).  They have the most spectrum across cellular, PCS, and AWS bands.  Nadir (President and COO) is a sharp cookie, so as long as he’s around, they’ll be in good steed.  Ted is just a lovable figurehead with bright orange and baby blue suits.  Remember, before Nadir, that place was a mess, and Ted was around in full force.  Nadir brought accountability, stability, and focus to the organization and has executed brilliantly.  Plus, they have a HUGE head start.

TELUS will do very well.  They are spectrum rich, and Darren Entwistle is relentless and wants, no… needs to win.  Their Koodo move seems to have worked as a market share grab, even though it’s hurt ARPU somewhat.  The move to GSM will be their saving grace.  Expect them to become the #2 carrier in subscribers shortly.

Bell is an enigma.  George Cope is a great leader, but he has inherited a big mess.  He and his ex-Clearnet crew have been around for a while, and they haven’t made a huge impact on wireless operations.  No more beavers, but they were the folks who hired them in the first place.  A new logo, but no new ideas. Privatization could be positive as long as the new owners are committed to injecting some serious capital into the organization in order to build real long term value.  Short term pain (losses), long term gain (profit! yay!), sort of idea.  The new owner’s track record with the Toronto Maple Leafs does not inspire confidence in their commitment to this new hobby/cause.

Rogers wins among the incumbents.  Globalive among the new entrants.  Videotron among the new regional players.

It’s a good time to be in the industry, that’s for sure, and a pretty exciting time for anyone who’s interested in this stuff.  

Maybe Bell is right.  Things just did get betterer.