Coming this fall to Canada – some new cellular competition. Profiling Public Mobile

Is Public Mobile going to present a phenomenal, and welcome, case of under-promise/over-deliver, or will this be another company claiming to be the next big thing, but is all sizzle – no steak?

After announcing their plan to provide Canadians, well for now only those that live in Toronto or Montreal, an alternative to the big 3 cell providers, Public Mobile is looking to jump in bed with Wal Mart to ensure that they continue to become known as the low cost, high-frills option in the Canadian cell phone market.  The company is interested in placing their products in the hands of “ value conscious” Canadians in Ontario and Quebec, and feels that their target market is available at Wal Mart and other convenience location.

And Public Mobile knows something about being value conscious.  Scooping up the G-band for only $53 million in the wireless spectrum auction last year – nearly 80% less than what the other parts of the spectrum went for. Public Mobile has been able to show that they are serious about providing real competition to the big players: Telus, Rogers, and Bell.  The question is; can they afford to be the affordable cell phone provider?  With no hardware designed to be used in this spectrum, combined with a target market of 2 million customers, this will be an interesting company to watch. But everyone loves an underdog!

PM is planning on an unlimited talk/text plan for $40, with no contracts, no credit checks, and no hidden fees.  It sounds too good to be true, but they are sticking to their story.

It seems like there are some out there that think PM is going to be a winner.  OMERS (the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) has agreed to invest up to $50 million into the PM brand to help them grow.

One concern here is whether PM can get the phones working within the spectrum, using CDMA in the g-band.  They seem to have overcome this by using CDMA and a “simple software change” to make the first phone call in Canada in the g-band.   Another concern is about the viability of the spectrum that no one else wanted.  Will Public Mobile be heroes or horrors?

Stay tuned, because I sure will be!

More: I asked a friend and budding Telecom enthusiast Brian Cole to comment on the above. His thoughts:
I seriously think out of the three new entrants to the market, Public Mobile has the potential to do the most damage to the established telcos. The funny thing here is they are positioning themselves as a “budget brand”, but I think they will have the potential of grabbing some heavy business users as well – customers that most providers want and need. Wind Mobile (Globalive) will have to really be aggressive to compete in this marketplace. They will be battling Public on one side and the established three on the other. I don’t even know where to put DAVE Wireless; they have been playing their cards close. This will be very interesting to watch !

I sent an email to Public Mobile asking them these 2 questions:

How are you going to differentiate yourself in the Canadian market ?

Do you think the lack of a data offering will negatively affect your long term chances of success ?

I will post these answers in my next post.

More: You can read about the other two new cellular companies coming to Canada. TheTelecomBlog.com has profiled:
Coming to Canada this Fall – profiling Wind Mobile
Coming to Canada this Winter – Dave Wireless

I wrote a post in November 2009 titled: Public Mobile using Nortel hardware ? Huh ?

Want to review Public Mobile’s voice plan – click here:

Jeff, www.digitcom.ca

Tagged as: Bell Canada, cell phone, digitcom.ca, public mobile, Rogers, spectrum, Telus, wal mart