The story
Founded by John Bitove in 2009.1
2008–2009: Early years
Originally formed as DAVE Wireless by Canadian businessman John Bitove, the company entered the 2008 spectrum auction for AWS frequencies. DAVE spent $243 million on 10 MHz of AWS spectrum blocks largely covering southern and eastern Ontario, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. The domain davewireless.com was registered on July 10, 2008, via Go Daddy. Later, on October 27, 2009, the domain mobilicity.ca was registered via Internic.ca and the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA).
Dave Dobbin, who had held executive posts at other telecom firms (COO of Telecom Ottawa, President of Toronto Hydro Telecom, President of Cogeco Data Services), was named president and CEO.
2010–2012: Launch and competition
DAVE Wireless's website was launched with information on January 7. The following month, on February 2, it was confirmed that the company would operate under the name Mobilicity. The company was built to deliver Canadians a simple mobile solution. Later, service was launched to the public on May 15, but only for the city of Toronto. On November 17, service was launched in Edmonton and Vancouver, and in the Ottawa and Gatineau area the following day. Coverage in Calgary went live on April 28, 2011. This was the last major update to Mobilicity's coverage.
During Q4 2011, Mobilicity had a 50% off sale on all monthly plans. Dave Dobbin resigned in November 2011. John Bitove assumed the role of Executive Chairman. Stewart Lyons, formerly Executive Vice President of XM Satellite Radio Canada, replaced Dobbin as Mobilicity's president, while Bitove assumed the role of Executive Chairman. Mobilicity ended the year with approximately 206,500 subscribers, of which 113,000 (54%) who activated during Q4 of either 2010 or 2011.
Several new devices launched at Mobilicity during the first half of 2012. The carrier launched the Galaxy Nexus, its first Android 4.0 device, on February 2. This happened one day before competitor Wind Mobile launched the same phone. Mobilicity sold the phone at a $600 retail price, but cut it in half to $300 by Q3 2012. The first Windows Phone sold by Mobilicity was the Nokia Lumia 710, released on May 17, 2012, and discontinued in Q3 2012. The BlackBerry Curve 9320 was released on June 6, 2012, and the Samsung Galaxy S III was released on June 27, 2012.
On April 1, Mobilicity changed its plans and website, which remain available to this day. Variants of the 50% off sale for monthly plans were reintroduced in 2012 during the months of May, September, November and December. October 2012 saw the addition of 24-month multi-month discounts and, on October 30, a premium service option for faster mobile broadband. Loblaw Companies was added as a retail partner.
2013–2015: Financial restructuring, attempted acquisition deals
On February 12, 2013, Mobilicity announced a new multi-stage financing deal worth $75 million. Of this sum, $15 million has already been provided to Mobilicity. Catalyst Capital Group, however, opened a file at an Ontario court in an attempt to halt this deal.
On April 10, 2013, Mobilicity announced that it would withdraw from the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. The other wireless startups, Public Mobile and Wind Mobile, also withdrew from the CWTA, citing "bias in favour of Rogers, Bell and TELUS" as the main factor. Gary Wong, Director of Legal Affairs for Mobilicity, was quoted as saying "We have spent the better part of three years repeatedly voicing our opposition to the CWTA on a wide range of matters to the point of issuing a press release in January 2011 that publicly expressed our dissent on the CWTA's position on wireless consumer protection."
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On April 26, 2013, an order was issued by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice allowing Mobilicity to attempt restructuring. The court order allows Mobilicity to ask creditors to vote on business sale and restructuring plans which contain actions that are intended to help the company raise additional capital and pursue other strategic options.
Mobilicity announced on July 10, 2013, that the company was "in discussions with multiple parties in connection with an acquisition plan of arrangement." It was reported in the National Post on September 4, 2013, that Mobilicity was in negotiations to have Wind Mobile assume their customers while investors retained control of spectrum licenses, though this report was later denied by Mobilicity.
Mobilicity initially had an end date of October 30, 2013, for its Stay Period, which prohibits "proceedings against the applicants or the property". Stewart Lyons resigned from Mobilicity the following day. Mobilicity's Stay Period has since been extended ten times and now carries an end date of August 31, 2015.
Telus and WIND Mobile interest
On May 16, 2013, Telus announced that it has agreed to acquire Mobilicity for $380 million, pending regulatory approval. On that day, Mobilicity had over 250,000 subscribers and 150 employees. Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced on June 4, 2013, that the Canadian federal government would prohibit the Telus takeover of Mobilicity because it would be a violation of the conditions of the 2009 AWS spectrum auction. Public Mobile was acquired by Telus on October 23, 2013. Telus made a second attempt to acquire Mobilicity on April 17, 2014, for $350 million. Mobilicity stated that they believe the deal "will not affect competition in the Canadian wireless sector" and will satisfy government regulators. The Competition Bureau disagreed with Mobilicity's claim and blocked the sale again. Telus ultimately terminated its acquisition plans.
Following the blocking of the proposed Telus deal, WIND Mobile then-CEO Anthony Lacavera stated that WIND was interested in re-opening consolidation discussions with Mobilicity. Lacavera had called for the consolidation of WIND Mobile, Mobilicity, and Public Mobile in the past to better compete with the three major Canadian wireless companies, a plan rebuffed by both Mobilicity and Public Mobile. After it was announced that American carrier Verizon Wireless would be putting off and ultimately cancelling a decision on offering to buy Wind Mobile or Mobilicity, Lacavera announced that in addition to buying back a controlling share of Wind Mobile he remained interested in purchasing Mobilicity.
Starting in May 2014, WIND Mobile made several promotions targeted at Mobilicity customers. The first was a free month of service for any plan worth up to $60. In December 2014, following the recapitalization of WIND Mobile by new investors, it offered $60 in service credits and a free SIM card to customers porting a number from Mobilicity. During January and February 2015, WIND offered Mobilicity customers a free SIM card and six months of free service on the WIND35 plan for switching.
In February 2015, the Financial Post reported that WIND Mobile was in negotiations to take over Mobilicity in the weeks leading up to the AWS-3 spectrum auction registration deadline. The negotiations had been reportedly stalled due to the high price that Mobilicity's creditors were requesting from WIND to purchase the smaller carrier's assets. Discussions halted on January 30, 2015 (the application deadline for the spectrum auction) and were put on hold until the auction results were announced in March 2015, since both carriers had registered for the auction and anti-collusion regulations prohibited any discussion or negotiation of deals between competitors during the auction.
2015: Acquisition by Rogers
Telus had made three unsuccessful bids to purchase Mobilicity out of bankruptcy, starting in 2013, and while they were all approved by creditors, regulators blocked the bids since Mobilicity's ten spectrum licenses were set aside exclusively for new entrants and Industry Canada would not allow them to be transferred to incumbents "because of a fear of undue spectrum concentration". In addition, WIND Mobile had been seeking more spectrum, especially in Ottawa, but Wind's $200 million offer for Mobilicity was too low to satisfy creditors even though it had regulatory approval. Telus also initially did not want to transfer spectrum to WIND at no cost. WIND CEO Alek Krstajic, formerly a senior vice president of sales at Rogers Communications and former president of Bell Mobility, then approached Rogers CEO Guy Laurence about a deal where Rogers would acquire Mobilicity and then transfer some of Mobilicity's AWS spectrum licenses to WIND at no cost.
In early June 2015, both Telus and Rogers Communications bid to acquire Mobilicity, primarily for its wireless spectrum. Unlike in previous acquisition attempts, Industry Canada was willing to consider approving a sale of the smaller carrier to one Canada's major telecom companies provided that some of Mobilicity's AWS spectrum licenses were sold or transferred to former competitor WIND Mobile. On June 23, Mobilicity's creditors approved a $440 million deal which would see Rogers acquire the entire company while divesting certain spectrum licenses to Wind. The acquisition plans were approved by the Ontario Superior Court (as overseer of Mobilicity's bankruptcy proceedings), Industry Canada, and the federal Competition Bureau on June 24.
2016: Shutdown
Rogers announced its intention to retire the Mobilicity brand on May 10, 2016, and stopped activating new Mobilicity lines on August 15, 2016. Existing customers' plans were not grandfathered. Mobilicity subscribers were instead given a choice of "comparable" plans when they are migrated to Rogers' other value-brand mobile provider Chatr beginning in fall 2016. Rogers also stated it would convert "over half" of existing Mobilicity retail outlets to Chatr branding. On July 27, 2016, Rogers launched the My Chatr Move website to facilitate Mobilicity customers switching to Chatr.
From Wikipedia’s article on Mobilicity, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4