A common element running through a number of presentations at Monday’s CWTA forum was tackling the myths of competition in Canadian mobile wireless, further challenging the call from some elements for government subsidies to stimulate a fourth national carrier. Later this week, I’ll write more about reaction from regional cable companies to spectrum set-asides.

Dvai Ghose of Genuity led off the ‘myth-busting’ with an attack on 8 myths in Canadian wireless:

1. Wireless penetration is lower than the US due to prices
2. Canadian ARPUs are high due to high usage
3. ARPU is the only indicator of wireless affordability
4. Canadian carriers are underspending on networks
5. Canadian wireless consumers are unhappy
6. Wireless is more of an oligopoly in Canada
7. Consumers have very little choice
8. Wireless has always been profitable

His conclusion was that the industry was not broken and government should not intervene.

Rob Bruce, president of Rogers Wireless, spoke of Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics during his luncheon keynote address. His talk took aim at the myth of a cozy relationship between the 3 major carriers.

He asked how cozy the industry can be when Canada has seen such a significant shift in market share over the past 5 years. According to his charts, Bell has seen its share of the postpaid market fall from 42% in 2001 to 23%. In the same period, TELUS share climbed from 21% to 32% and Rogers has grown from 20% to 45%.

The fireworks are just getting started.

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Update: [April 25, 8:05 am]
Iain Grant – who was unavailable for Monday’s event in Ottawa – did an interview in today’s National Post. The theme of the article is the role of small players in pricing. Iain continues to call for subsidies for smaller players – like city of Toronto-owned Toronto Hydro Telecom, while conceding that Quebecor would not need the financial help. The interview suggests that there are really only 2 carriers in any given region; a myth that conveniently ignores the dozen or so brands and competitors that are acting in precisely the role of offering creative and often aggressive pricing alternatives.

I am hearing rumours that next week’s earnings reports may show more shifts in share. Hardly signs of coziness.

I have been playing around with the latest upgrades to my Joost™ beta trial lately. I like the user interface but I’m not sure I fit the target demographic.

The variety of content currently available on Joost is woefully inadequate, possibly due to the beta nature of the product at this time. It makes me wonder about the entire concept of their content distribution model.

How do you get live sports (a major challenge for compressed content), news, current affairs. Will any of these be coming?

What about access to new release programming, movies, etc.? Without these, I can’t see how anyone could consider cancelling their current TV distribution supplier.

Joost may prove that they can technically distribute video, but isn’t the real question whether people want to watch. With people moving their entertainment to HD large screens, I don’t think the Joost quality is good enough.

Is Joost an example of what I have called ‘The Iridium Syndrome’ – an engineering-led solution solving a non-existent problem resulting in massive flushing of cash?

One would think that IP TV, in whatever form, would be especially well suited for random access to archival programs, combined with a feature rich search engine capability. Something like entering “Lucille Ball chocolate factory” or “NASA moon Armstrong steps” or “Gomer Pyle”. What about a search for “Beatles Ed Sullivan 1963”. Am I showing my demographic prejudice?

Sorting programs into channels is something we have today. Our current broadcast distribution technologies are optimized to do a great job of delivering channels.

It is unclear to me that Joost is delivering enough on its potential to be a truly disruptive force. Random access and searching the universe of existing program libraries strikes me as more worthwhile for users and a more disruptive leap forward.

I mentioned last week that I’ll be speaking about wireless pricing and competition issues later today at the CWTA AWS Forum in Ottawa.

I will provide updates from the Forum using a trial of a new Canadian mobile blogging tool for my antique Blackberry – I returned the demonstrator 8800. The AWS Forum has a variety of perspectives – the financial sector, equipment providers, current carriers and potential new entrants.

Speaking of wireless pricing, I noticed that Vikesh Anand posted about a new Rogers calling plan that offers 700 minutes per month of peak calling for $40.

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Update: [April 23, 5:20 am]
Watch this space for updates from the AWS Forum.
[April 23, 9:40 am]
Flight to Ottawa was a who’s who of Canadian wireless – carriers, financial folks and entrepreneurs. A sell-out crowd at the Chateau Laurier – of course, CWTA used predatory conference pricing – free. Of note in the opening remarks by Michael Binder and Len St.-Aubin’s description of the consultation process was a repeated assurance that the Minister has no preconceived ideas. Despite last week’s call by Quebecor to expedite the auction, Industry Canada expects a lively internal discussion as it develops its auction policy.
[April 23, 11:00 am]
An unspoken message that I picked up from the technology session? With next generation wireless delivering viable alternate access for internet, are we going to see comments addressing wireless net neutrality as part of the AWS auction consultation.
[April 23, 11:40 am]
Dvai Ghose’s 8 Myths of Canadian wireless may win the award for most entertaining of the day. I’ll ask Dvai for his slides for your reading later this week.
[April 23, 3:10 pm]
Lies, damned lies and statistics was the title of Rob Bruce’s luncheon keynote and it was a common theme in the afternoon. Comparative penetration rates? Pricing? RoE? My conclusion: changing the rules of the game sends a dangerous message to the capital markets – let’s welcome additional competitive players, but without economic distortions in the marketplace.
[April 23, 3:35 pm]
Michael Hennessy of TELUS mentioned the private equity elephant in the room. With multiple Canadian private equity firms bidding 35B plus for Bell, is there really a need to have concern for new entrants to raise capital.

There was a comment yesterday asking me why I have not written anything about the private equity interest in the Canadian telecom sector. Thanks for asking.

Surprising as it may seem, blog writing is not quite as lucrative as you may think. Many of my readers don’t seem to be very interested in the ads that frame this page. As a result, I’ll reserve commentary and advisory services [on certain issues, at least] for my consulting clients. But keep those cards and letters coming.

I noticed that, in the month of April, I have already mentioned Star Trek three times: two of the posts were associated with William Shatner coming to Toronto to help Rogers launch its Vision video calling and then there was Friday’s citation of Spock’s line from Wrath of Khan (among other episodes) in my post regarding carriers shaping packets for the good of the many.

Maybe I have spent too much time on campus at U of T, Queens and McGill this month. It is taking me back to my youth.

I wonder where I packed those Klingon action figures…

Earlier this week, I mentioned that my daughter has been using Virgin Mobile for her phone service for the past 8 months. We signed up with them initially to avoid getting into a long term contract in advance of wireless number portability.

A few days ago, we called Virgin to determine how we should deal with her move back to Toronto. A real person answered the call, no music nor bionic menuing – what an innovation for 6-1-1! Within the duration of few minute call, we had her phone reprogrammed to a new number – no charge.

I like choice. I like free. I like having no system access fees. These are a few of my favourite things.

Andrew Black, President and CEO of Virgin Mobile Canada will be speaking at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit, at 4:30 on June 11.