Canada Welcomes Number Portability
Canadian number portability is in full effect here in Canada. In the last couple of days the mobile companies have literally gone mental trying to keep customers and avoid bleeding revenues. Everything from free phone credits, to Richard Branson showing up on every TV show around.
The most interesting tactic has to be the way Telus has literally taken Google’s contextual advertising hostage. As of the afternoon on March 14 every site in Canada that uses Adsense is overflowing with Telus ads. On this site all of the ad inventory has been taken over with Telus banners and even the single text link ads at the top of the homepage have been replaced with a weird search box. If you enter a term in the search box you instantly see search results that flaunt Telus number portability ads. Somehow a search for ads related to dogs makes Google think I’m interested in switching my cell phone over to Telus.
Like our neighbours to the south I’m certain this will all be sorted out in the days to come and when it is all said and done all of the major players in the mobile space will claim victory over this number portability game. Telus, Rogers, Bell, etc. will all exchange a handful of customers, but I’m willing to bet that it all washes out in the end.
The only interesting thing about this new number portability stuff in Canada is the launch of AMP’d. Time will tell how much impact they have on the industry.
I was just as amazed as you were! Good job Telus!
Canada 411 Directory » Canada Welcomes Number Portability (March 15, 2007, 1:24 am).
[...] post by andreg and software by Elliott [...]
Number Portability in Canada at Sowrey.org (March 15, 2007, 9:14 am).
[...] Telus, I think, is starting to worry about number portability, knowing that many of their long-locked customers are itching to roam the world, rather than just around the block. Andre’s noticed this — Telus has dominated search ad space in an effort to retain and acquire as many customers as they can. [...]