[james99]

The $6.5-billion merger between Russia’s VimpelCom and Wind Telecom SpA has been approved by its shareholders, but is still pending regulatory approvals. In total this brings them to a combined 173 million mobile subscribers and also creates the 5th largest mobile operator in the world and Globalive’s Wind Mobile will be a part of this deal.

 

[TorontoColin]

Doubt it. While it is in the best interests of this new company to see Wind succeed, they will still be hampered by unique frequencies with a small user base. Since nobody else in this new entity uses AWS, Wind Canada still can't split orders with them, so I don't see the connection they're making, unless they plan on convincing manufacturers to use pentaband chips just for Wind Canada.

 

[Rockjock]

With this deal comes a 20 billion dollar debt, I can not see how this will expand the handset choices nor the network. Even today there is talk of dissension in the ranks at Vimpelcom. It is a wait and see game now. T-Mobile being sold to AT&T is now also something that has to be looked at as a possible factor for less AWS handsets. Some sources have hinted that the platform ( AWS ) may be phased out due to lack of handset choices and increased costs.
another case of wait and see.