I am puzzled. Wind Mobile has opened for business in a few select Canadian locations and has a rate plan that kicks king Maya Maya ass. Yet the formerly cartelish giants Telus, Roger’s, and Bell still not only are not penny stocks but after a quick slap to their share prices all seem to be doing fine. I don’t understand? I look at the plans offered by these three bozos and then I look at Wind Mobile’s plans and my jaw drops. Any Canadian with half a brain will switch over to Wind Mobile and either cause the big three to drop prices or lose customers. This will drain the mega profits from these companies faster than a vampire drains blood. I won’t go into a blow by blow of plan vs plan but I will pick a pair of subtle but important comparisons. Wind does not have contracts. No 1 year contracts and certainly no 3 year contracts. So how much is this worth to the average customer? It is certainly worth a huge amount to the big three bozos Roger’s, Bell, and Telus as they expend a huge amount of energy trying to lock people in for as long as possible. The other comparison is that I understand Wind’s plans. I can calculate what I will get and for how much. I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out the various plans from Telus, Roger’s and Bell. I use pay as you go from Telus and they still manage to screw me every once in a while. In fact tonight I have to call them and beg for them to unscrew me. I would much rather tell them to “go to hell” and the moment Wind comes to Halifax, Nova Scotia I will. I won’t just drop Telus as a mature adult should but I will call them and tell them to go F themselves. (Telus customer since 2001).
So this brings me to a stock analysis. Why didn’t the big three lose their shirts the first day that Wind opened? I suspect that Wind will run a tight ship and thus their opening salvo of prices isn’t their bottom line pricing. If anything by looking at some European prices they probably could be profitable at half or even a quarter of their present rates. Whereas old fattened pigs like Telus, Roger’s and Bell are generally old and creaky and filled with bloat. They generally have old infrastructure that is costly to run. They usually have perceived obligations that prevent them from becoming lean predators. They were built like elephants for grazing and just being too big for any little predators that might pop up in little old Canada. But now they are faced with a T Rex that can bite huge chunks out of them and barely notice their pathetic bleating. Mobile telephony is not a terribly complicated technology and getting set up in markets across Canada should be easy with the funding behind Wind. So if I were an institutional investor with large holdings in the formerly bluechip telcos I would be dumping them like an old moldy leftover found in the back of the fridge. You know the ones where you even toss the Tupperware out as something you don’t dare open. That is; even the Tupperware doesn’t have a future.
So this one is a lesson in progress. I think there is a deep lesson in Canadian business life to be found in this set of stocks. Wind is a monsterous lean and hungry competitor that will lessen the financial burden of the vast majority of Canadians. Thus they not only should have market forces pushing them to future success but they have moral virtue on their side in that breaking the back of what appears to me to be basically a cartel or a blended form of monopoly is simply the right thing to happen. But obviously the brainiacs on Bay street (Wall Street Jr.) don’t agree with me and think that the big three have bright futures. So what is up? This is one situation where I would have thought the facts were clear and a short of the big losers would have been a sure thing but I would have been right for around 1 day.
I can’t wait for two things. For this story to play out and for Wind Mobile to come to Halifax, Nova Scotia. For the love of God come quickly.