After much speculation and a few off-the-mark target dates, Virgin Mobile Canada will launch March 1. At least, that's what a corporate press release said today that promises an appearance by Richard Branson. Virgin says its new service "will change the face of the Canadian mobile phone industry".
For ex-Bell Mobility president Michael Neumann, who "resigned" yesterday, he will at least have the satisfaction of watching smugly from the sidelines as Virgin tears into the pre-paid market and steals casual wireless users from the Big Three - Bell, Telus Mobility and Rogers Wireless. As much as no one wants to under-estimate Richard Branson, I get the feeling the Big Three may be surprised with how well Virgin Canada fares.

Rogers Communications is still shooting for July 1 for its launch into Internet telephony. Alan Horn, Rogers' chief financial officer, told an investment conference today the service will be launched in Ontario this year and Atlantic Canada in 2006. Horn was less forthcoming on Rogers' pricing plans. He diplomatically said Rogers will fall somewhere between Videotron's discount approach and Shaw's premium pricing strategy. When asked about whether Rogers has the same kind of penetration goals as Shaw - 20% of the market within five years - he saidit was "not a bad target".
It's interesting that as Rogers surges ahead with Internet telephony, Call-NetEnterprises isn't placing much focus on the business this year. Instead, Call-Net will continue to grow its traditional wireline local business, which ended the year with about 310K residential customers. Call-Net CEO Bill Linton said he does believe Internet telephony will have much of an impact on the market this year. I get the feeling he still sees the market focused on price rather than features so there is no real need for Call-Net to allocate some of its marketing resources on a service with minimal demand.

According to Infonetics, carriers spent $1.7 billion on VOIP equipment in 2004, a 36% increase from 2003. Infonetics forecasts spending will climb to $5.9 billion by 2008. The good news for Nortel is it was the softswitch market leader last year in class 4 and class 5 apps. Among the companies getting into Internet telephony that will use Nortel's softswitches is Rogers Cable Inc., which announced its Nortel deal today as part of its launch into telephony by mid-year.