Orascom Telecom Holdings of Egypt happens to be one of the biggest investors in Wind Mobile and Naguib Sawiris is the company’s executive chairman. In a recent interview with the Globe and Mail, he says that Bell, Telus and Rogers are “a joke” and that they’re not worth investing in because they’re “too big” and “too slow.” That’s why he wanted to invest in Wind instead.

Interestingly, Sawiris says that he has been “offered by two of them to buy me out at a very significant profit, but that means I’m a broker, not an industrialist. It’s against my saga, against my history. I’m not the kind of guy who goes out for the money. It’s about success. And this, I would consider it as a bribe.”

He doesn’t want to be bought out, but he’s not opposed to doing some buying out of his own. IN fact, he says that it is inevetible that Wind will acquire other newcomers Public Mobile and Mobilicity. He views Wind as the “consolidator of all the smaller players.”

Wow. Bold words.

Canada is a telecom backwater, says bold backer of Wind Mobile [CTV News]

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You see, Public Mobile decided to open up ten stores in Toronto and fifteen stores in Montreal a couple of days ago. You can go to these stores, chat it up with the employees, and learn more about that $40 flat rate unlimited plan. You can even sign up, if you’d like, but the actual Public Mobile network doesn’t go live until the middle of May.

Why on Earth would you want to sign up for Public Mobile now, you might ask? Well, if you sign up before the network launch in a couple of months, Public Mobile will offer you free unlimited Canadian long distance for life. We’ve mentioned this offer before, thinking it was only available on launch day. By taking pre-orders, as it were, Public Mobile helps to spread out that rush.

The handsets being offered by Public Mobile are meant to be simple and inexpensive, coming from Samsung, Kyocera, and ZTE. They focus on talk and text, rather than on “extra” features like data smartphone features and web browsing.

One of the major pitfalls of Public Mobile, however, is that it does not have any roaming agreements in place. What this means is that if you fall outside of the Public Mobile home zones in Toronto and Montreal, you will not have any service. At all. That’s a scary proposition for travelers, but less of a concern for people who never leave the T-Dot.

The post Public Mobile opens stores: No roaming, not even a network appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Public Mobile "Unlimited" bus shelter ad.

The Canadian wireless climate is about to undergo another shakeup. The launch of Wind Mobile opened up the floodgates to some more competition and now another contender is on the way. Public Mobile has already started some guerilla marketing and it seems that it will be launching with free long distance.

If you’ve looked around some towns, you may have seen some ads at bus shelters and other locations that simply say “unlimited.” There is no branding, but we’re led to believe that they’re for Public Mobile. In case you’re not as familiar, Public Mobile is going to be a new wireless carrier in Canada.

So, what does this whole “unlimited” business mean? According to some sources, you will be given free Canadian long distance for life if you keep your account in good standing and you move over to Public Mobile on launch day: May 15th.  However, the Public Mobile website only shows “Unlimited Talk and Text” on their $40 plan, if they do plan to copy other providers and offer free LD would definitely help their launch strategy.

Public Mobile will only be available in Ontario and Quebec at launch, their handset offering will need to go beyond the ZTE C78 they’ve listed on their website if they want to stick around.

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