I appreciate very much Globalive chairman Tony Lacavera taking time today (a Sunday) to have an interview with me to talk about Globalive/WIND Mobile’s plans after the government of Canada overturning the CRTC decision 2009-678 (PDF).
As a current Bell Mobility customer, I am excited to see a new wireless competition coming to the oligopolistic Canadian marketplace. The following are some highlights of my interview with Tony (mp3 download).
WIND Mobile’s plan to sign up new customers before Christmas and new year
WIND Mobile stores will open this week and Tony confirmed that WIND will roll out its wireless service as soon as possible and most likely before Christmas. I tried but was unable to get Tony to say the launch will be this week. Tony sees WIND has one chance to demonstrate to Canadians that it is a serious 4th national wireless provider competing with the likes of Bell, Telus, and Rogers. So he wants to launch when everything is ready.
Phones, Apple iPhones, and Google Phones
WIND will have a few phones available at launch and hope to expand on the choices to include more offers. At launch, iPhones will not be available but will be available in the near future as WIND network can technically support the phones. As to the Google Phones, Tony also indicated the WIND network can support it when the phones are available.
Last Friday on BNN, Tony said WIND Mobile has a target of 4-6 million subscribers in 5 years. I asked about their expected number of new customers vs customers that switch?
Tony explained that it will be difficult to estimate as different cities have different number of providers and level of competitions. For example, in Toronto, there are 7 brands/sub-brands operating and that is different from other smaller cities.
Comment re “foreign control limits”
In a blog post “Government Overturns CRTC Giving Globalive The Go-Ahead” by University of Ottawa’s Professor Michael Geist, he picked two specific paragraphs in the government of Canada’s “Order-in-Council” (PDF) and his reading and analysis is this (emphasis added),
“These paragraphs signal the prioritization of enhanced competition in the marketplace. With support for foreign investment, the removal of foreign control limits may not be far behind.“
Tony reiterated the importance of the foreign control limits and Globalive is a Canadian company as he had said to other media outlets. You can listen to his answer in the audio interview.
Telus’ Twitter comment
I asked for Tony’s comment to the following tweet by Michael Hennessy, Senior VP, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Telus
“If Wind is canadian then so was King Tut [...]“
and my light-hearted reply to Michael,
“Merry Christmas Michael. My Christmas comes early today! [...]“
I will let you hear what Tony said in response to the above tweets in the audio interview below. 
Few other questions
I asked few other questions which you can listen to the Q&As in the audio interview. Tony also indicated that WIND Mobile is a startup company, the network is brand new, and stated that “there is no question that we are going to make mistakes and it is not going to be perfect.” But Tony emphasized their main differences with the incumbents likes of Bell/Telus/Rogers is that WIND Mobile is going to keep using WINDMobile.ca to listen to the customers’ feedback and suggestions and keep making things better.
Well, the promises have been made. It is up to Canadian potential customers to hold WIND Mobile true to its promises.
Have a listen to my interview with Tony (mp3 download) or streaming audio here.
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Only time will tell if WIND Mobile can deliver on their promises. The first thing we will see are the pricing and service plans. And then the customers will give their feedback on the call qualities and internet surfing experiences, etc. Later, we will see if Canadians will get new phone offerings like the iPhones and Androids “soon” as promised.
Note: the audio clip has been edited for length and clarity. Some audio segments have been “normalized” so the volume appears more even.
P.S. Thanks again to Tony for taking time to be interviewed on a Sunday and Globalive’s PR firm for arranging it.
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