Having four carriers competing against each other won’t drastically push down wireless service prices, Wind Mobile’s CEO Pietro Cordova says. Canadians will likely see a slow drop, but the effect will likely be far from expectations as Wind strengthens its coverage across the country, he suggests, speaking with the Financial Post.
Canada’s fourth-biggest carrier has now surpassed the 800,000 active subscribers milestone, which means it is still well short of the 1.5 million subscriber within three years of operations goal. While partnership with Apple still remains a future plan, the carrier has more than 40,000 iPhone users on its network, Cordova said to MobileSyrup.
Despite missing its original goals, the carrier has continuously proven that it is among the crazy guys, although they aren’t that crazy:
“We have proven to the market that we’re not afraid of making changes, but we’re not here to plant a bomb in the garage and run until the building comes down,” Cordova said in an interview Tuesday, the fifth anniversary since Wind began providing service in Toronto. “Because once the building comes down, no one can live there. It’s a stupid thing to do.”
So what’s next for Wind? Well, it’s pretty obvious if we listen to Cordova and co-founder Anthony Lacavera’s previous statements: The company needs more spectrum to grow. This is exactly what Wind will do next year as it aims to secure the much-needed spectrum thanks to the capital injection it received recently through the Globalive takeover. Wind Mobile now has new shareholders who are interested in the company, but it remains to be seen whether they will want an IPO in the next two or three years, Cordova says.
