Finding economic mobile solutions during recent journeys have made me think about the potential winners in telecom services at the Vancouver games in February 2010, followed by the Paralympics in March.
It is old news that Bell has won the rights to be the Premier National Partner for the games.
In the wake of the release last week of the rules for the upcoming spectrum auction, the timing may be just about right for the Vancouver games to be the launching pad for some Olympic-scale competition from a flurry of new competitors.
We had some overseas visitors with us last week. To handle their mobile phone needs, we picked up a pay-as-you-go SIM card for their mobile handset. We use a similar approach when we travel south of the border or overseas.
Think of the number of international visitors that will be coming to Canada in 2010 – 18 months after the conclusion of the auction – just about the time the new entrants will be launching their services.
All of that new spectrum is going to be needed to serve the crush of visitors to the west coast. There could be a lot of telecom services winners at these games.
At least two opportunities exist. First, there is the international roaming revenue that will be generated by those visitors who don’t know (or perhaps just don’t care) about the typical cost of using your handset in a foreign country. Rogers will be the team to beat and is currently the favourite for winning the gold medal in free-style roaming.
The other opportunity will be for all of the carriers to sell some form of disposable service plan to visitors, either in the form of SIM cards to go into visitor handsets or cheap, disposable phones.
Bell may be the official supplier, but I would watch for preliminary competition to take place at Vancouver airport and the duty free shops in Blaine. Unlocked handsets adorned with Canadian flags or mountain motifs, equipped with one, two or three weeks of unlimited North America wide calling and cheap international long distance could be a splashy way for new entrants to make a grand entrance.
Let the games begin!