Mobilicity purchased by Rogers

[raceman6135]

Looks like the Rogers deal to buy Mobilicity went through:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mobi...fear-1.3127692

My WAG: they'll leave things the way they are for between 6 and 18 months, then either get rid of the brand completely by absorbing and migrating people to Rogers/Fido (the way TELUS did with Clearnet), or make it identical to Rogers/Fido, so the only real difference is what colour your bill will be.

[Xtrema]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle25094485/

Better map of spectrum of who got what.

Wind seems to get something out of it as well. But Rogers isn't ready or sized to take on Bell/Telus even it got more spectrum.

The purchase isn't for customer base or spectrum, it's for the towers. Something they sorely needs.

I expect Rogers and Wind to merge at some point to increase the tower counts.

[schocker]

Slow clap for Shaw

[mr2mike]

Still hoping Wind can continue moving forward.

[jwslam]

Originally posted by schocker
Slow clap for Shaw

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/roge...over-1.3125569

There's a third angle to the deal, in that Rogers says it will finalize a plan, previously announced in January 2013, to buy additional spectrum blocks that Shaw acquired in the 2008 spectrum auction but never used.

Rogers will pay $100 million in that move, and package some of Shaw's unused spectrum together with all of Mobilicity's spectrum to Wind to satisfy regulators.

[SportEL]

It would be nice on my $35 plan when Wind gets LTE.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Xtrema


The purchase isn't for customer base or spectrum, it's for the towers. Something they sorely needs.
.

I don't think that is correct.

If my memory serves me, Mobilicity didn't own a single tower, and instead, leased tower infrastructure from Bell in the areas Mobilicity wanted to have service initially, and then grow it as their subscriber base grew. Ericsson Managed everything else behind the node Bs.

You are correct in stating it wasn't for customer base. 150k subscribers for any of the big 3 is barely a drop in the bucket.

I do believe that this was a play to be able to use spectrum that was in limbo from shaw, and get some more from mobilicity, while passing some along to wind to satisfy the CRTC and other regulators.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by mr2mike
Still hoping Wind can continue moving forward.

They will but not at current plan prices. They are still broke.

And with Mobilicity gone, they can jack up prices now.

Originally posted by spikerS


If my memory serves me, Mobilicity didn't own a single tower, and instead, leased tower infrastructure from Bell in the areas Mobilicity wanted to have service initially, and then grow it as their subscriber base grew. Ericsson Managed everything else behind the node B

They do and the big 3 are forced to share towers with other players. But they have been denying them claiming saturation, this will give Rogers towers that is already under current lease.

My bet is eventually Rogers will force AWS band users to roam on WIND and repurpose current site for 700Mhz implementation.

[spikerS]

Originally posted by Xtrema

They do and the big 3 are forced to share towers with other players. But they have been denying them claiming saturation, this will give Rogers towers that is already under current lease.

My bet is eventually Rogers will force AWS band users to roam on WIND and repurpose current site for 700Mhz implementation.

I dont think that is correct either.

Most lease contracts like that have a stipulation that limits access and such in the event of a sale to direct competition. The infrastructure that Mobilicity owned is way too small and limited for Rogers to make a play for it. Besides, what Rogers is using is way more advanced and developed in comparison.

More than anything this is a spectrum play, and helps the bottom line for subscribers to a small extent.