A colleague reminds me that Wireless Number Portability in Canada celebrates its first birthday today.
March 14, 2007 was the launch of consumers being able to take their number with them if they changed their wireless carrier. In Canada, the systems allow consumers to port numbers between wireless and wireline, increasing consumer choice and facilitating wireless substitution – cutting the cord completely.
As another step toward increased consumer choice, today is also the day that Industry Canada will release the list of applicants to participate in the AWS auction.
Happy birthday to Wireless Number Portability. Consumers can raise a toast to even more choice being on its way.
Update [March 14, 5:30 pm]
The list of Applicants is now available on the Industry Canada website. There are 30 companies who have applied, ranging from Niagara Networks looking for a whopping 6510 bid points for almost $900M in deposits, down to a few firms looking for only 2 bid points at $80,000. At the end of the month, we’ll see which of these 30 contestants remain in the running. Industry Canada will be reviewing the paperwork and verifying the Letters of Credit to see who gets voted off the island.