When
WIND mobile launched in December 2009, it was the first cellular network provider to launch in Canada in more than a decade. Now, just months later, a second new service has launched retail operations in preparation for switching its network on in mid-May.
On March 18,
Public Mobile opened 15 stores in Toronto and 10 more in Montreal to sell phones and service prior to the network's launch. Public Mobile media relations person Lisa Papas says that the company has been staffing up, conducting research and building its network since its inception in 2008. She points out that the company is hiring now (
17 Toronto positions are listed on its website) and says the pace of growth at this stage has been hard to keep up with -- "We've been so busy during the launch I haven't even had a chance to post a position I'm hiring for."
Public Mobile CEO Alek Krstajic
said in his announcement of the store openings that the company will double the number of locations open to the public before the launch of its network's service in mid-May of this year. The company is pitching its service based on local unlimited talk and text plans for $40 per month, and has stated that
it does not see itself competing with the gizmo-happy web, video and application-based smartphone services the traditional mobile providers in Canada have focused on.
Author: Edward Keenan
Source: Lisa Papas, media relations, Public Mobile
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