WIND Mobile’s long and winding road into Canadian wireless is continuing today. May 18th is when their “stay of judgment” is over and are back in court defending their ground in becoming Canada’s 4th national carrier. In February the Federal Court reversed the 2009 decision that gave WIND the green light to operate in Canada “was based on errors of law and must be quashed”. Globalive’s WIND Mobile brand is financially backed by Egyptian-based Orascom and other new entrant Public Mobile and Telus believe that how the ownership structure was set up didn’t follow Canadian foreign ownership rules and brought on the inquiry.
Industry Minister Tony Clement stated that he’ll appeal the Court’s ruling and “We believe that our decision was the right one for Canadian consumers and we will vigorously defend it. Globalive is a Canadian company and meets the Canadian ownership and control requirements under the Telecommunications Act. Globalive should therefore be able to continue to offer service in the wireless telecommunications market”.
After the Federal Court ruling Anthony Lacavera, Chairman of Globalive, said that they will also appeal and “we disagree with several aspects of the Federal Court decision, and we are confident that the Federal Court of Appeal will overturn it. Our biggest priority is to put this regulatory gaming by our competitors behind us, so that we can continue to focus on bringing wireless innovation and competition to the marketplace”.
WIND Mobile recently announced they brought on 39,000 new subscribers in Q1, almost bringing them to reach the 300,000 milestone. “Obviously, we will fight in the courts as far as we can… At the end of the day, there’s no scenario where Wind gets shut down,” Lacavera said.
What do you think will happen to WIND?
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