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uniqs
1977

sbrook
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join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

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Wind considers purchasing Mobilicity and Public sold

Now here's a potential deal that makes more sense giving Wind more spectrum, towers and customers.

»www.cbc.ca/news/business ··· ity.html

And on top of that Public Mobile has been sold ...

»www.cbc.ca/news/business ··· ile.html

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

The public mobile was a play to get in on a spectrum sale next year, it's been proven over and over that "equity firms" are not interested in running a company but how much they can make on it.

Lacava has a good idea in merging public and moblicity into Wind , there would give them a ton of spectrum , because their data speeds suck balls right now.

donoreo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
North York, ON

donoreo

Premium Member

said by elwoodblues:

The public mobile was a play to get in on a spectrum sale next year, it's been proven over and over that "equity firms" are not interested in running a company but how much they can make on it.

That is what they do.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

My point is it's a waste,, a sale to Wind makes more sense, now you'll have the Thomson Family sitting on the company till early next year and sell it to Robellus.

Guspaz
Guspaz
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join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to sbrook

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to sbrook
Spectrum-wise, Mobilicity is much more interesting to WIND than PM. WIND can't upgrade to LTE in most of the regions they've deployed their network, because they only have enough spectrum (20MHz) in a handful of places like southern Ontario. Mobilicity doesn't have as much spectrum (either in amount or area) as WIND, but they do have an extra 10 MHz in every place WIND currently covers.

Getting Mobilicity's spectrum allows WIND to migrate to LTE without cutting off existing customers.
stormy13
join:2003-10-28
Pickering, ON
Asus RT-AC66U B1

stormy13 to sbrook

Member

to sbrook
How about Public buying both Wind and Mobilicity?

»www.ctvnews.ca/business/ ··· .1313525
quote:
The CEO and founder of Public Mobile says the regional wireless company now has the financial backing necessary to compete with Rogers, Bell and Telus and become Canada's No. 4 national carrier.

Chief executive Alek Krstajic wouldn't say how much money will be available from Toronto's Thomvest Seed Capital Inc. -- which has links to Canada's wealthiest family -- and Cartesian Capital of New York.

But Krstajic said he would like to his small regional wireless company to buy struggling Mobilicity as well as Wind Mobile and believes the odds are in his favour due to financial backing from the two private equity firms.

neochu
join:2008-12-12
Windsor, ON

1 edit

neochu to elwoodblues

Member

to elwoodblues
said by elwoodblues:

My point is it's a waste,, a sale to Wind makes more sense, now you'll have the Thomson Family sitting on the company till early next year and sell it to Robellus.

If IC really has any idea of competition they will reject that sale too. Those licences will either sit forever until someone meets the needs and regulations -- or they go back to Industry Canada.

If anything happens in the spectrum auction there wont be anyone new to buy -- so itll just lag around until IC has its criteria met.

cybersaga
join:2011-12-19
Selby, ON

cybersaga to stormy13

Member

to stormy13
said by stormy13:

How about Public buying both Wind and Mobilicity?

If that happens, they'd be silly to get rid of the Wind brand. I just talked to a friend yesterday (a very techy friend actually) who didn't even know that Public Mobile and Mobilicity existed - only Wind.
julienvf
join:2008-12-30
Verdun, QC

julienvf to sbrook

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to sbrook
Any 3g/LTE GSM phone out there that supports AWS G band, 700mhz along with the 4 common bands for roaming?
MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-17

MaynardKrebs to sbrook

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to sbrook
Thomson family has been in/out of bed with Bell since the original BellGlobeMedia deal 10-12 years ago.

Despite the fact that Thomson has deep pockets, I just don't see them being long-term operators of a cell company in Canada. I'd much rather see Lacavera (who has telecom in his blood) running a combined 4th national carrier.
bt
join:2009-02-26
canada

bt to julienvf

Member

to julienvf
said by julienvf:

Any 3g/LTE GSM phone out there that supports AWS G band, 700mhz along with the 4 common bands for roaming?

There are some.

Blackberry Z10/Q10. A bunch of Samsung phones, though not all models of each. The A1428 (T-mobile) model of the iPhone 5. The RM-820 model of the Nokia Lumia 920.

J E F F4
Whatta Ya Think About Dat?
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join:2004-04-01
Kitchener, ON

J E F F4 to sbrook

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to sbrook
My understanding with the Public Mobile thing is that once, and if, that purchase goes through, they'd end up buying both Wind and Mobilicity, to make the "4h" provider in Canada.

I'm okay with everything, as long as I get to keep my Wind and my prices.

I got my Rogers bill (since I am still with them) and I had ROAMING charges! How the hell does one get ROAMING with Rogers? $2.50 for 2 messages, it claims. I have not been close to the US boarding, so I'm unsure who I was bouncing off of.

My total roaming charges in 6 months with Wind is about $2.00, it was for like 5 messages and 5 minutes of voice.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues to stormy13

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to stormy13
What on the crap G band they bought and has what 3 phones available for it?

Guspaz
Guspaz
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join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to sbrook

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t-mobile's G-band LTE deployment makes that spectrum incredibly more valuable. The problem is that PM can't migrate to LTE (or any of the phones that will support LTE on g-band) because they don't have any other spectrum to support a migration (they have 10MHz in a 5+5 pair, and 5 is already the smallest CDMA slice).

If they manage to acquire another carrier to get more spectrum in Montreal/Toronto, they might be in a position to migrate the g-band to LTE without cutting off existing customers.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by Guspaz:

t-mobile's G-band LTE deployment makes that spectrum incredibly more valuable.

Sprint is doing LTE on the G-band, not T-Mobile.

T-Mobile is refarming their spectrum used for UMTS from AWS to 1900 and rolling out LTE on AWS. In essence, they're doing exactly what the Big 3 in Canada has been doing all along. This hurts the Canadian upstarts because there will no longer be a much larger market for phone manufacturers to go after to offer HSPA on AWS. T-Mobile will be able to feed off of the same phones that Robellus and AT&T use instead.

Sprint is the one using PCS G for LTE. That sucks just as much, because Sprint doesn't have and never has had an UMTS network, only (like Verizon) IS-96/EVDO. None of the Sprint phones designed for LTE on PCS G will be of any use on any network in Canada because they won't support UMTS for fallback or voice.

The only way a merger of all three would make any sense without needing 700MHz is if they replaced every single customer's phone and completely moved UMTS to PCS G, hope to god phones will start supporting UMTS on PCS G, and then do LTE on AWS. Or, they can wait for 700MHz and figure out a way to do VoLTE reliably.

Without that kind of plan they will simply be far far too small of a market for any manufacturer to make phones for. You'll end up with another "I can't get an iPhone!" situation all over again. They won't be able to get any hardware from anyone in any sort of timely manner.

infamouskid
join:2007-01-24
White Rock, BC

infamouskid

Member

actually shouldn't sprint phones be usable on PM's network when they go LTE.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

No, because Sprint doesn't use the G band for IS-96. They only use it for LTE.

They would work on Public Mobile if they did a hard switchover and used VoLTE, but that's a few years out.

callous99
@199.21.149.x

callous99

Anon

If Wind merged with Mobilicity, would it mean phones that isnt compatible with AWS would work on their network?

AWS phones are expensive and not useful outside of canada.

I read on this thread about LTE possibly deployed on a different band. Would currently LTE phones not working on AWS likely to work after such a merger in the Toronto area?

Gone
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Fort Erie, ON

Gone

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said by callous99 :

AWS phones are expensive and not useful outside of canada.

Never been to the United States, eh?

sbrook
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join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

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Never been to England either. There are a few AWS carriers there too.

But most AWS phones are AWS/GSM. The 4 different phones we've had on Wind also roam on Rogers GSM no problem. And there is the issue ... roaming in Europe on GSM is a problem because they use a different frequency range. BUT I found my Nokia phones still worked in Europe, PROVIDED I changed the SIM to a UK sim card which allowed it to use European frequencies.

Gone
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Fort Erie, ON

Gone

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They do? I didn't know they used AWS in the UK, either. I thought it was a strictly an Americas thing and that Europe ran all of their UMTS on 2100.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad ··· Services

Guspaz
Guspaz
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Montreal, QC

Guspaz to sbrook

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to sbrook
If WIND bought Mobilicity, phones from both existing companies should be able to do HSPA on eachothers' spectrum, leaving half of it free to do an LTE transition without breaking compatibility with existing phones...

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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elwoodblues

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Industry Canada is dragging it's heels on approving vimplecom's purchase of Wind.

Seems they are "concerned' that a canadian company owned by a Russian Company, using Chinese telcom gear is a security concern.

Guspaz
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1 edit

Guspaz to sbrook

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Errm, WIND is already owned by vimpelcom. Vimpelcom is currently trying to *sell* WIND, not buy it.

EDIT: Ah, the roadblock is over vimpelcom buying WIND, but buying the *rest* of WIND (the parts they don't already own). vimpelcom wants to do that to have a more compelling package to sell.

EDIT2: Apparently the government has until July 4th to make a decision, but the Sawiris/Lacavera purchase offer for WIND expires on June 30th. Also of note is that MTS has agreed to sell Allstream to Sawiris. Apparently the plan there is to leverage Allstream's large fiber network as a backbone for WIND's cell network.

callous99
@199.21.149.x

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So in simple terms is it likely a Wind merger with mobilicity could allow them to allow non-AWS frequences to work with nonAWS phones like the Samsung S3 (non-wind version)?

sbrook
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join:2001-12-14
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sbrook

Mod

Oops ... my bad on the AWS ... since AWS is a subset of UMTS, my phones were actually UMTS capable on more than UMTS IV (AWS). The interoperability of these protocols is quite confusing. A pure AWS phone would not work in Europe ... true.

Guspaz
Guspaz
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said by callous99 :

So in simple terms is it likely a Wind merger with mobilicity could allow them to allow non-AWS frequences to work with nonAWS phones like the Samsung S3 (non-wind version)?

Errm, they wouldn't have any non-AWS spectrum. Mobilicity and WIND both have AWS spectrum.

The process (as I understand it) is thusly:

1) WIND only has 10MHz in most of their network (a 5+5 pair). The only place they currently have enough spectrum to launch LTE is southern Ontario (includes Toronto).

2) Mobilicity only has 10MHz everywhere in their network (a 5+5 pair)

3) HSPA's minimum spectrum slice is 5 MHz, so neither WIND nor Mobilicity have enough spectrum to deploy LTE and HSPA side-by-side (except WIND in southern Ontario)

4) Mobilicity's spectrum doesn't cover everywhere WIND has spectrum, but Mobilicity does have 10 MHz of spectrum everywhere WIND's network currently exists

5) Mobilicity and WIND's spectrum is both AWS and as such phones from either network can use any of that spectrum.

6) If WIND and Mobilicity merged, WIND would have at least 20MHz of spectrum everywhere they currently offer service, enough to do 5+5 HSPA & 5+5 LTE everywhere, and 5+5 HSPA & 10+10 LTE (or some other split) in southern Ontario.

7) The game plan post-purchase would be to migrate all WIND/Mobilicity customers to the same 5+5 HSPA chunk (can be done automatically without customers having to do anything) and then begin deploying LTE in the second 5+5 chunk.

8) When the migration is complete (when they discontinue HSPA a few years down the road), they get 10+10 or 15+15 depending on location. They will also have enough to seamlessly migrate to future wireless standards in a similar manner.
MaynardKrebs
We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-17

MaynardKrebs

Premium Member

@Guspaz

You are correct.
But I think we can count on IC to delay and roadblock long enough such that none of the new entrants can survive, except if Thomson's Public Mobile becomes the acquisitor.

In that case, it's only a matter of a short while before the bulkier Public Mobile gets sold to one or more of the incumbents as the return on capital operating a bigger Public Mobile isn't high enough for Thomson and their private equity partners.

shrug
@videotron.ca

shrug

Anon

Canada is concerned about the selling off Wind to the Russians as they and they Americans spy on all of us and the world.

Canada delays Wind Mobile deals on security concerns: Report
»www.canoe.ca/Canoe/Money ··· 436.html

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
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join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

Ironic, they and/or the Yanks can spy on us, but don;'t you dare let the Russians and/or Chinese do it.