Residents of Quebec will have a another mobile phone provider in the next 12 to 18 months after Videotron, a division of Quebecor, announced today that it will launch a mobile phone network in that province to compete with Bell, Rogers and Telus Mobility. (http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/3000/282/)

Well the announcement is official now. Videotron will service Quebec and Ottawa area. Despite buying spectrum in the Toronto area, no decisions have been made.

Thoughts?

I wonder if existing Videotron wireless customers will be able to seamlessly transfer over to the new network? They are now a mobile virtual network operator using Rogers.

I think Videotron is going faster then ruling in the matter. The frequencies that the CRTC intend to allocate for such wireless phones will more likely be heavily debated as they are widely utilised in the corporate sector of audio-visual fields for the use of wireless microphones and much more. The new ruling on white spaces would be of great disturbance. In the states, shure has assembled a coalition to protect the frequencies used in the field. I can't find the CDN one at this point but I'll get the link from work and post sometime tomorrow.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061013-7979.html

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/13/1731225

http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/PressRoom/PressReleaseArchive/2007PressReleases/us_pro_press_DCMeetings

What will matter to me the most are: how competitive will the rates be when compared with the rest of the world, and can I simply order a SIM card for my unlocked phone. I'm no longer interested in contracts or crippled phones.

Videotron was very competitive in landline telephony and I expect them to push the envelope in Mobile phones. I don't expect big discounts but they hinted that they would drop some of the annoying fees such as System access fees.

With a $554 million bill for the spectrum, (more than the cost of the network build), its unlikely you will get super cheap fees.

In the announcement it said that the videotron mobile service would be offered in eastern Ontario (OTTAWA). Does that mean that Videotron won the licences for Ottawa, and that Globalive (YAK) did not?

Was really hoping for Globalive (YAK) to offer their new service in Ottawa.

Thanks for any info on this.

Allan

I'm sure there will be deals annouced with Yak to become a national providor.