Number portability, GSM & Canada

Erstwhile reader Vanni comments that here in Canada we will have wireless number portability (WNP) by March 14, 2007 -- in most of Canada.

March 14th, 2007! Most of Canada! You have to love the CRTC.

Somewhat related to this I read a comment from Vodafone CEO, Arun Sarin on GigaOm this morning:

CDMA is like spaghetti. There are too many parts to it. Why do you need it when you have such a clean global standard as GSM? For someone who is already on CDMA it makes sense to graduate to GSM and maybe get out of CDMA eventually.

So when I put these two issues together and look at the Canadian market I have to shake my head. The CRTC and the Canadian Competition Bureau in their infinite wisdom allowed the dominant GSM operator (Rogers) to acquire the feisty and smaller GSM operator Microcell. Now, in Canada, we have a monopoly provider of GSM services. A tip-of-the-hat to Rogers for actually pulling this off.

So my point is that number portability in Canada is pointless if you need GSM services, as I do. Who am I going to port my number to? Not Telus. Not Bell. Unless either of these two CDMA operators take Arun Sarin's advice I'm stuck with Rogers.

Of course every cloud has a silver lining. Just buy Rogers stock. A monopoly operator and very low wireless penetration in the Canadian market means that this stock still has a lot of growth left in it.

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Mobile, Canada, GSM