The Canadian Angle

With more than 5,000 kilometers of cable, 6,000 PCs, 3,000 TVs, 7,000 cell phones, and 40,000 ethernet ports, the Vancouver Olympics are giving technology providers little by way of wiggle room.

The setup for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver differs from Olympic setups from other years in that the Vancouver events will be using one massive Internet Protocol network to handle all of the video, voice and data from the games. The network, set up by companies like Atos Origin and Bell Canada, may even have more performance pressure than some of the athletes.

When the games start up on Friday, the Bell Olympic Network will kick into high gear and the telecom company had better be ready to back up their mandate for the events.

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WIND Mobile is on an expansion spree and the carrier will shortly launch its services in Edmonton and Ottawa. As the country's fourth national wireless carrier, WIND Mobile continues to receive a good response in and around the GTA and Calgary.

As per the update from Chris Robbins on his WIND Mobile Community Blog, the stage is all set for WIND Mobile to expand its network and increase more subscribers in new as well as existing areas in the next few months. Chris adds that WIND Mobile recognizes the value of customer feedback and his team has been working round the clock on ensuring a great customer experience.

In the past, high priced US roaming tariff has been a rather weak selling point for WIND Mobile.

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Telus, one of Canada's largest telecom providers, has advertised that "The Future is Friendly" for many years now, but many consumers have frequently suggested that the future might be friendly, but the present - not so much.

Telus announced today that they will be using SmartTrust's advanced Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) as well as their device management platform in an effort to provide better service to their customers now, and in the future.

The SmartTrust platform will enable smart phones and practically all other devices on the network to be "recognized, correctly configured and optimized to the full extent of each device's specific potential and capability" through the use of SmartAct's Over-The-Air SIM management system, according to the SmartTrust press release.

With the recent completion and implementation of the joint Bell-Telus HSPA+ network, enabling the addition of the iPhone 3G and 3Gs to the Telus handset stable, the folks at Telus have been winning major brownie points with the consumers.  And with the inclusion of SmartTrust's device management platform, the positive customer service trend continues.

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Public Mobile has applied to the Canadian Federal court asking the court to overturn the Government's decision to allow Wind Mobile to launch despite Wind's clear violation of CRTC foreign ownership rules. I am figuring that this is a publicity stunt to:

- gain some exposure for Public Mobile
- let the public know once again that Wind Mobile is NOT a Canadian owned company and that they should buy from Public Mobile once they launch.
- let the public know that Public Mobile is clearly Canadian. Perhaps they could use this in their marketing campaign
- keep their name in the papers

I don't think this appeal will go anywhere - it could very well back fire if the general public perceives Public Mobile as being too opportunistic.

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Now let the party begin ! Or let the competition begin.

Globalive toppled the first major hurdle - the CRTC. They got approval from Industry Canada to launch their WIND Mobile brand only one week ago.

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Bell and Rogers have both made public declarations that they are interested in acquiring the Globalive spectrum if Globalive isn't in a position to use that spectrum.

Wind Mobile's cellular application was approved by Industry Canada in March. Their ownership structure was scrutinized at the time and deemed to be acceptable. Wind Mobile, in partnership with Egypt's Orascom, were set to launch Canada's next and fourth national carrier network until the CRTC got their regulatory claws into the deal.

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On Friday an agreement was reached between the founders of Skype and the private investors that are hoping to buy it.  Skype's founders will get a 14% stake in the company, and eBay, the previous owners, will get nearly $1.9 billion in cash, and a note from the new owners for $125 million.

The new owners, Silver Lake (same parent company that owns Avaya ), Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, will hold 56% of Skype, and eBay will retain 30%.  Missing from the mix is Index Ventures. 

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According to an "industry insider", "reliable source" or whatever you call the people that "tip" you off with interesting news, the merger discussions between Bell and Telus are heating up. I wrote about this back on August 12th, 2009 - the title of that post was: Telus and Bell to merge ? Is that possible ? PLEASE NO !

This time the information comes first hand directly to me from someone "in the know".

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I have a dream. A dream that one day the CRTC will pull their bureaucratic heads out of the quicksand they seem to have it stuck in. That maybe they'll actually serve Canadian's interests for the better and be guided by what the populace actually needs, wants, and deserves.

What's my beef with the CRTC ?

If you have been following this blog you will obviously know that Canada has some new cellular competition about to enter the market.

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When you click on the link from Bell's site it brings you to a log-in screen that says "Coming soon on Canada's fastest largest network", followed by a sign-up form.

It looks like the party is almost over for Rogers. They had a monopoly in Canada on the widely extremely popular Apple iPhone for over 1 year, and now it looks like, with Telus and Bell's launching the HSPA network shortly the Rogers extended party is about to end. Not only that, but, competition is just around the corner in the cellular network with the new carriers getting ready to launch.

Written by: Jeff Wiener. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Identi.ca, or Friendfeed

This email just landed in my inbox. It's an appeal to speak up about new cable fees being proposed by the CRTC - ironically, this came from Bell Canada. Of course you see the irony in this email - it's like the "Pot calling the kettle black" isn't it ? Bell Canada asking us to speak up about new fees.

My question to Bell - how about all of those hidden fees, charges, surcharges, excuses, and years of bad service.

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Have you ever heard of PRI ? How do PRI rates compare from city to city ? Country to country ?

A brief technical explanation: PRI, sometimes also called Megalink, digital, or fiber, is a TDM, ISDN type (circuit-switched) type telco service which is rapidly replacing the older style analog line.

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RIM has been the dominant player in the game of global dominance in the smartphone world, but the industry analysts are starting to call the game before it's over.

If not RIM, who will be the winner?  Apple iPhone, Google Android, Palm Pre, Microsoft, Nokia ?

RIM currently enjoys 50% of the developing smartphone market, but apparently that isn't a big enough lead for the "struggling" Canadian company. 

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If you happen to be in Toronto, Canada on October 22nd, 2009, and have an interest in winning your customers hearts and minds on-line, then maybe you should consider attending Meshmarketing hosted by my friend Mark Evans.

What is meshmarketing ?

Well, it's not Telecom related, but, it is social media, and web media related, and many of the readers of this blog have an interest in Tech and Telecom, so let me explain what Meshmarketing is:

meshmarketing is a one-day event focused on insights, tools and tactics to help you win customers' hearts and minds, online.

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It apparently does, and the incumbents (Bell, Telus, Rogers) are pissed - why ?  Well, here's the new kid on the block that's going to rain on their parade.  If you were one of three firms operating in an oligopoly ripping consumers off for so many years, and a new competitive threat was knocking on the door, wouldn't you do anything you could to stop the new companies from entering the market ?

And on the flip side, the Canadian consumer should be pissed.

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