We Want Wind!

WIND Mobile wants to take Canada by storm, but it can only do it one city at a time. For the initial launch, we only saw their services being offered to Calgary and Toronto regions, but now they’re ready to add another town to the mix: Ottawa.

Canada’s capital city has officially been blanketed in the Wind Mobile network, giving all those politicians (and other residents) another option for their cellular needs. The coverage map reaches up to Buckingham in the north, Orleans in the east, Kanata in the west, and Hunt Club and airport to the south.

With the addition of Ottawa, Wind is now available in a total of four cities in Canada (the fourth is Edmonton). The expectation is that Vancouver should be one of the next ones to join the fray, since it’s one of the biggest cities in the country.

The curiosity is that, for whatever reason, there don’t appear to be any WIND stores in Ottawa to accompany the launch of the network in the area. Can any Ottawa readers verify? Any WIND kiosks inside Blockbuster Video locations?

I’ve been using the Yak service for a little while now, since it provides some great long distance rates on my cell phone. Yak also offers home phone and low-cost Internet services. With the new announcement today, you can now take your Yak and add in some Wind.

The bundles are supposed to provide you with monthly savings over subscribing to the services separately. The so-called Yak Paks can be found on their website, so feel free to browse and peruse.

To further entice you into the Globalive family, they’re offering a $150 credit toward Wind services if you port your mobile number over by the end of the month. This only works for Toronto and Calgary, for the time being, since those are the only two markets with officially up-and-running Wind networks.

“The combination of Yak and WIND Mobile allows us to offer the most competitive bundle offer in Canada,” said Globalive Chairman Anthony Lacavera. “Our customers will be able to talk, text, surf and connect all at great low rates, free of usage based billing, activation fees, throttling and, most importantly, contracts!”

Industry Minister Tony Clement has officially announced that Globalive can have the green light and proceed to start its Wind Mobile brand in Canada. The argument before was that it had too much foreign investment and not enough Canadian ownership to qualify under the current laws.

I’m not entirely sure what has changed in the meantime, but Clement has said that Globalive “is a Canadian company that meets Canadian ownership and control requirements.” As it turns out, what was once perceived as foreign ownership was really just “debt financing” for Wind Mobile. Semantics.

So, one of the major bureaucratic hurdles has been overcome. Now we just have to see how well Wind Mobile can stack up against the likes of Rogers, Telus, and Bell. We all know what ended up happening to companies like Fido and Clearnet, right?

Source: MobileSyrup

UPDATE:

I just found a new thread over at the RFD forums pointing toward the rumored price plans. For me, the $15 chat + $5 voicemail + $35 data sounds pretty good!

Chat: $15 per month
Unlimited WIND to WIND calling (Canada wide)
Unlimited incoming text
100 province-wide voice minutes
50 text messages

Always Talk: $35 per month
Unlimited WIND to WIND calling (Canada wide)
Unlimited province-wide calling
Unlimited incoming text
50 outgoing text messages

Always Shout: $45 per month
Unlimited Canada-wide calling
Unlimited incoming /outgoing text messages
Voicemail

Data Plans
Infinite Mobile: $35 per month (used with any voice plan)
Unlimited internet for phones (tethering too)

Infinite Laptop: $45 per month
Unlimited internet for USB data sticks

Possibly there will be a web on your phone only type data plan for $10/mn.

BlackBerry data plans
Social BlackBerry: $10 per month
Unlimited instant messaging, Facebook and MySpace.

Infinite BlackBerry: $35 per month (used with any voice plan)
Unlimited internet for BlackBerry

Addons:
Voice: 10c Per Minute with the $15 plan
SMS: 10c each
MMS: 20c each
Voicemail: $5

Long Distance:
$20 for unlimited North America

Stores should open within a week.

Edit: All plans include Caller’s ID, Call Forwarding and Call Waiting.

Even though the expectation was that Wind Mobile would be able to start its operations in the next month or two, its progress has now been stunted due to a ruling from the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Wind Mobile, which is the brand being operated by Globalive, is currently not being allowed to move forward, because it does not comply with the CRTC regulations concerning ownership and control. More specifically, the rules state that wireless carriers must be 80% Canadian owned, controlled, and operated.

Currently, an Egyptian company called Orascom has 65.1% equity in Wind, as well as the rights to the Wind brand in Canada. Does this mean that Wind needs to find itself some new investors? Perhaps, but Wind CEO Ken Campbell says that they “are not deterred. We are exploring different paths. And with your support and voice, we will find a way.”

Canada has one of the strictest set of protectionist regulations for the telecommunications industry. T-Mobile (Germany) pull out of Microcell, which operated Fido. AT&T (USA) pulled out of Rogers. And now an Egyptian firm could be pulling out of Wind. Where’s the international competition?

Source: Wind