Russia's VimpelCom Buys Wind Mobile In Canada 63
silverpig writes "Wind Mobile's CEO and Chairman Tony Lacavera announced on the Wind Mobile site that VimpelCom has decided to purchase Wind Telecom for $6 billion. The deal should go through by the middle of this year and may give Canadians cheaper international and roaming rates, as well as giving Wind some extra leverage with its suppliers and handset manufacturers. The deal is particularly interesting, as Wind is one of the new entrants into the Canadian wireless operator industry and has had to deal with issues regarding Canada's foreign ownership rules. Expect a lot of scrutiny from the CRTC, Bell, Telus, and Rogers."
Re:One thing's really been bugging me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Rogers, Telus and Bell will be whining to the CRTC about it again.
They don't like real competition to their price fixing and overpriced plans.
What Canada needs is foreign competition in the ISP market and to scale back the powers of the CRTC. The whole UBB fiasco has proven that the CRTC isn't acting in the interest of Canadian consumers, it shows they're in the pocket of the communications giants.
Foreign ownership rules (Score:5, Insightful)
They really need to get rid of the foreign ownership ban.
Is the fact that the oligopoly that is raping me happens to be Canadian supposed to make me feel better?
Lets get some real competition.
Then maybe we can get things like Europe, where charging for incoming calls is looked upon like the insanity it is. Fair data and SMS rates, etc. Fucking crooks.