There can be many advantages to being or using one of the smaller players in the carrier world. Smaller carriers often have a target to grow their business and because of this will usually offer customers a proportionally better deal compared with the larger carriers. The compromise to this is that smaller carriers often have poorer coverage; typically it’s somewhat localized. In other words, if your city has coverage from a smaller player, you can save money but you might find that you’re occasioanlly out of service, unless your carrier has a roaming arrangement with other compatible networks. In addition to offering potentially poorer coverage, sometimes the smaller carriers offer a less extensive device portfolio: not offering the device a customer wants can cost the sale. And sometimes the reason why a carrier has failed to grow as quickly as is hoped is because of other external factors, which is where I’ll pull WIND Mobile into the article.
WIND was five years ago and at the time, the carrier hoped that it would reach 1.3 million subscribers inside three years. Unfortunately, WIND didn’t reach this milestone. Indeed, it fell some way short owing to a mix of concerns over foreign investment and many court battles. WIND Mobile are the fourth largest Canadian carrier and now they have commented that they are stretching to reach the 1 million subscriber point later this year. The statement was Tweeted (have a look at the source cited below) and follows the last official subscriber count given in December 2014 of 800,000. This means that WIND will need to sign up a little over 18,000 new subscribers a month plus keep the ones that it has.
Does WIND have the stones to manage this? During their convoluted history, WIND were the first Canadian carrier to launch a HSPA+ service for customers. Their higher performance 3G HSPA+ network has cell ‘phones to transmitting data on the 1700 MHz frequency range but receiving at the 2,100 MHz, which allows a higher data throughput. Other Canadian carriers use these frequencies for 4G LTE technologies; WIND has confirmed that it will be participating in the up and coming AWS-3 (Advanced Wireless Spectrum 3) and 2,500 MHz auctions.
WIND Mobile offer a range of plans and smartphones and have steadily been growing their coverage and product lines. These expansion plans are relatively modest and from this perspective would appear to be perfectly attainable. Their Chief Executive, Tony Lacavera, commented on their expansion plans: “I believe wireless and telecommunications is just as important as electricity or water to our society and I’m excited to be a part in it.”
What do our readers think? Are you already a WIND Mobile subscriber? Have you looked at their deals in the past but decided to go with one of their competitors? If so, why did you skip WIND? Let us know in the comments below.