TORONTO – Just keep it simple.
That’s the thinking behind Mobilicity – a marriage of the words ‘mobile’ and ‘simplicity’ – which also happens to be DAVE Wireless’ new go-to-market consumer brand name.
Unveiled Tuesday morning along with its green and magenta (don’t call it pink) logo, company chairman John Bitove and president Dave Dobbin said that the new wireless carrier will launch in the Toronto market “this spring” with roll-outs in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa shortly thereafter.
“The value proposition for our offering to the market can be summed up in six words and six words only,” Dobbin said during the announcement at the swish offices of its downtown Toronto ad agency. “No contract, no credit check, unlimited wireless. That’s what we’ll be bringing to the market in spring of this year.”
The company was short on details around its future plans and pricing. And it would only confirm that it will offer “a full selection of handsets for everyday Canadians” ranging from basic talk-and-text models to smart phones (though Nokia and BlackBerry were mentioned by name).
Mobilicity also declined to commit to a specific launch date, saying that it was still working on the final details of its back end business and its 3G HSPA network.
Bitove said that the company hopes to be known as “the WestJet of wireless in Canada”, referring to the straightforward Canadian airline, and will target urban consumers who are either dissatisfied with their current carriers or who have never subscribed to a wireless plan.
“Whether you look at the incumbents or whether you look at the newest competitor, we see lots of opportunity to be simpler”, Bitove told Cartt.ca in an interview. “That’s part of our name, and we will have a very simplistic offering.”
The company’s VP of marketing Sara Moore took the concept one step further.
“For so many people, English is a second language. They come from somewhere else, and they don’t have the same cultural cues and icons that we do”, she said during an explanation of the company’s new name. “The simpler that we can make it, the simpler the language that we can use, we think that opens up our services to a greater number of people.”
DAVE Wireless (Data Audio & Visual Enterprises Inc) invested $243 million to acquire 10 MHz of spectrum for 10 licenses during the federal government’s wireless spectrum auction in July 2008.
