Mike it is not just about cellular. Competition by bending the rules. By hook or by crook? This goes across the board. Globalive was warned they were not compliant and they did nothing, they were told that all of the debt was held by Orascom and they should remedy that.. they did not. and now they will cry foul? Change the laws? Hmm interesting.. but how about changing them for the next auction. Why should Wind benefit for some back room deal and the other new players not? Do take a moment and apply this to something else. We all agree to play by the same rules and at the last moment I decided that I am better than you and I will have the rules bent for my benefit. Then it comes to light and I begin to cry foul.. sure I cheated, yes I bent the rules and yes it was not fair.. BUT I will still complain.
Even if the opposition agrees (and we all know that's not a given) how long would this take anyway? Rewriting the Telecom Act sounds like a multi-year effort to me. I could be wrong of course but the government usually isn't a model speed and efficiency...
That's irrelevant now. They have 45 days to make themselves compliant. That's now all that matters to their continued existence.
The first time they were swamped they outsourced to the Peterborough call centre. That worked well enough, so the next time they were swamped they outsourced to an Egyptian call centre (just one). Apparently they weren't nearly as happy with the result, so they are looking at local options now, preferably in-house.
That is not the way indirect equity works. Globalive bought those things with the money Orascom invested. They cannot simply take their equipment. In the event of bankruptcy they would become the largest creditor, assets would be liquidated, and they would get their allotted amount. Now sure they could work out some complicated scheme where by Globalive sells it to Orascom and uses the money to pay Orascom for their debts, but I'm not even sure if that's legal.
The government might buy Wind to save face and to keep the competition they so desired alive. It would more likely work like the auto bailouts rather than full-scale takeover. Personally I want Wind to survive because they're helping lower mobile rates in Canada. Without the combined marketing and work of the new entrants there is no chatr for example.
Rockjock, the difference is that the companies you mention were NOT in the "space" reserved by nationalists for Canadian companies...no matter how much some other car companies etc. would like to have stopped them coming here.
I'm not a lawyer and I just skimmed the doc, but it looks to me that the court didn't say that Globalive wasn't Canadian-controlled. The court said that one of the reasons the cabinet used was not in the Telecom Act (ensuring access to foreign capital, technology and experience). If the cabinet had just left that clause out and not limited the decision to Globalive, I think could have approved the cabinet decision.
Not true at all. Plenty of businesses are allowed to operate in Canada despite being 100% foreign owned. The difference is that Wal-Mart isn't subject to CRTC regulation. They set up a Canadian division with a Canadian president and CEO, but Verizon could do that and still wouldn't be allowed to operate in Canada.
Of course, and I know they looked for Canadian funding and couldn't find it in the scale they needed.
I'm not sure as to which 'three' new entrants you are referring. If you mean Public and Mobile, they were done on much, much smaller scale and needed far less funding. If you're referring to Shaw and Videotron, they represent companies already established in the Canadian telecom sector and can use the funds and assets from their other divisions as the start up capital for their wireless divisions. And again, they're not on the same scale as Wind.
If you want a better timeline, Wind found their call centres were at capacity before they launched in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Edmonton, so they hired a whole bunch of new CSRs. Following those launches they quickly realized that their one call centre wasn't nearly enough so they contracted the second call centre in Peterborough. Pleased with the results, when that one reached capacity they hoped to do the same thing only cheaper by contracting the Egyptian call centre. They aren't pleased with that one, and they're apparently now much more wary of contracted call centres, so they're now trying to add more in-house, but that takes much longer and they are already overloaded. Keep in mind that they're adding subs at a fairly high rate. I'm not saying they haven't made mistakes with the call centres, I'm saying these aren't the actions of a company on the verge of leaving.
Was Globalive complaint - No, Yes, No - When CRTC made their decision - no; at the time the Cabinet made their decision - yes; at the time the Federal Court made their ruling - no. Legally, without any historical perspective they were never compliant, but you make a business decision on the facts at the time with assumptions for certain risk not a crystal ball.
