This is an awesome video interview dating back to the 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit. On stage is former Mobilicity (DAVE Wireless) CEO Dave Dobbin, WIND Mobile CEO Tony Lacavera, and Public Mobile CEO Alek Krstajic. At the time none of these exec had a single wireless subscriber and were simply planning their strategy to attract new customers. There are a few choice statements and could be good entertainment for 12 minutes.
(Apologies for the audio and video quality)
Dave Dobbin: “I think there’s actually room in the market for all three of our companies to survive, if not thrive. Now, granted I believe we’ll take the lions share of the available market, that’s inevitable.”
Dave Dobbin: “We’ve stacked our management team with competitors.”
Dave Dobbin: “The folks running Bell, TELUS and Rogers are really, really smart. They will figure out a way to compete with us. We need to be aggressive. We need to be smug. ”
Tony Lacavera: “It’s not going to be an easy go for any of us.”
Tony Lacavera: “We have to be careful of what niches we attack”
Alek Krstajic: “The reality is, here’s what you guys will do, if you go up against the upper end of the market, what I call the over served market, you will have a situation where you will cause pricing to be more competitive, they will become more competitive and drop their prices to compete with you. Their customer satisfaction will improve… you will improve them, there is no question about it.”
Alek Krstajic: “If you look and smell like an incumbent, you cause them to be more competitive.
Alek Krstajic: “We think the right thing to do is to go after a market they can’t, or won’t serve.
Alek Krstajic: “One of us is going to be wrong. And we’ll hopefully see you guys next year.
Alek Krstajic: “I think it’s better off waiting a couple years, letting me consolidate the low-end of the market and buying us down the road for a few billion. It’s a lot smarter. It’s not rocket science. In the meantime we will raise penetration amongst the working class. Everybody’s got a phone and everybody’s happy. It’s just a better plan”
Flash forward to today: Mobilicity is almost out of business and preparing to auction off their subscribers and assets. WIND Mobile is still plugging away and has about 640,000 wireless subscribers, while Public Mobile will be acquired by TELUS.
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