Following WIND Mobile’s announcement a few weeks ago about a launch in Ottawa, they finally went live today, complete with the unveiling of a tongue-in-cheek everyman statue. Above you can see an active community member and WIND Ottawa’s first customer, Daniel Nedecki, upgrading his old Rogers BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 with a brand spanking new WIND Bold 9700. I got a chance to swing by and there were a few interesting tidbits of information being flung around. For one, it sounds like the next market to open up to WIND is Vancouver, penciled in for June. The CEO, Ken, said plainly that they would double their handset line over six months, and hopefully double again shortly after. A Motorola phone is unlikely, since they apparently don’t do much that supports AWS bands, but a low-tier candybar, likely from Nokia, is going to be the next handset we see from WIND.
There’s certainly interest in Android, but WIND is unlikely to get a subsidized version any time soon, although you can always buy it full price unlocked from Google; odds are T-Mobile has some ironclad exclusivity for the foreseeable future. Regardless, T-Mobile’s roadmap will have a pretty clear correlation with what WIND will offer, so if you’re in Canada and you’re wondering what’s coming next from WIND, just look south of the border. The current Ottawa locations are all stuck with Blockbuster for now, but contrary to some nasty rumour I had heard the other week that Rogers was buying up prime locations and subletting them to anyone but WIND, full-blown brick and mortar stores will be opened in Carlingwood mall in the west end, and Place D’Orleans in the east, hopefully with those Microsoft Surfaces. Quebec is still a no-go because Videotron has a lockdown on the bands necessary for WIND to operate. Finally, I heard that there would be another data plan coming out some point soon – we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for more details.
Hit the jump for pictures and videos of the Ottawa WIND Mobile launch!
