ROW Special Update

TELUS Corp. scoops up Spotnik MobileTELUS Corp. has acquired the remaining interest in Spotnik Mobile the company didn’t already own, Report on Wireless has learned. Sources familiar with the deal indicate that last Monday, June 28, the western-based ILEC finalized an agreement to take 100% control of the Toronto-based hotspot operator. Representatives from TELUS and Spotnik were unavailable for comment at press time, so reasons behind the acquisition are unclear at this point. With a viable business model still eluding most hotspot operators, it should come as no surprise that some of the players have begun to disappear from the landscape. The “land grab” of securing the rights to popular locations had to run out of steam because usage rates weren’t as high as some had previously predicted, thus draining the bank accounts more quickly than anticipated. It should also come as no surprise that Spotnik was scooped up by its primary investor TELUS. Spotnik has been on the front line trying to build a hotspot footprint that TELUS could leverage as part of a national hotspot roaming plan unveiled by all four national mobile wireless operators earlier this year (RoW, March 10/04). Spotnik has been a well-funded hotspot provider having received an injection of $6 million from TELUS Ventures about 18 months ago. In an interview with Report on Wireless last July, the company boasted of being able to build out 500 hotspots by the end of that year and owned the rights to more than 1,000 (see box). “We’ll have secured the rights to well over 1,000 by the end of the year, but you’ll likely see around 500 deployed,” Spotnik Co-CEO Mark Wolinsky told RoW last July (RoW, July 22/03). Report on Wireless will have more on this in an upcoming issue.

ROW Special Update

News | July 5, 2004

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