Despite a report last week that Blackstone has decided that it is not willing to take the risk of investing in WIND Mobile, conditions appear to be improving for the company to find “an investor with deep pockets”.
Cash would enable WIND Mobile to expand its network and marketing and put the company in a position to pick up much of the new AWS-3 spectrum being offered early next year to operating new entrant carriers at significantly favourable prices.
A couple of CRTC decisions are helping all new entrants lower their costs of providing national services. As the only player with spectrum and distribution across most of English Canada, WIND Mobile should benefit most from the domestic roaming rulings this summer. The CRTC has banned exclusive roaming contracts, which should have the effect of enabling new entrants to roam on each others’ networks. The company has also benefited from a CRTC letter identifying a sharp reduction in domestic roaming prices. These two actions should enable WIND Mobile to work on aggressive consumer plans (such as a soon-to-be-announced WIND 35 plan) in time for the back-to-school sales season.
Last Wednesday, Mobile Syrup wrote about a leaked price chart showing that WIND Mobile will be offering national 3G roaming with data rates of just 5 cents per megabyte, down from $1. The company had previously been limiting roaming to 2G speeds because of concerns that roaming charges would be be too high for customers to stomach. With lower costs being passed on, consumers will also benefit from faster connections.
WIND Mobile has recently enjoyed impressive financial results despite having limited access to capital as its principal backer, Vimpelcom, seeks to sell its stake.
It could be that Blackstone walked away from WIND Mobile just as the company was starting to get its second wind.