Public appetite for the wireless devices insatiable, firm’s CEO says
Jamie Sturgeon
Sun
Rogers Communications Inc. plans to recast the definition of the Internet and how it is used as more Canadians transition toward smart-phones.
“The notion of Internet at home [or] Internet at the office is changing to: your Internet, wherever you are,” said Rogers chief executive Nadir Mohamed during the keynote address at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Monday in Toronto. “It’s very powerful.”
Canadians’ appetite to communicate, access information and entertainment, and even make transactions through their wireless device is becoming “insatiable,” the CEO said.
He added that Toronto-based Rogers, the largest wireless carrier in the country, is moving quickly to bring mobile Internet to the masses.
Mohamed estimated, by 2014, more than three million Canadians will be users of smart-phones, such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry, which surf the Web and provide e-mail.
The 53-year-old telecom veteran, who became Rogers‘ chief executive in March, said the adoption rate of such devices was accelerating.
The address comes days before Rogers will introduce the iPhone 3G S, Apple’s latest device, which is at least twice as fast as its predecessor.
The new model also boasts a powerful new operating system and access to a growing array of applications, an area which is rapidly growing in importance, Mohamed said.
He noted the 50,000 applications, which range from video games to communication programs, that can be downloaded to a user’s phones found on Apple’s virtual App Store, and the thousands more developers are designing for other handsets.
“It’s huge. We tend to take these things for granted,” he told a crowd of several hundred.
“We think of these things as consumer applications, but the same thing is happening on the business side.”
He said Rogers was looking at becoming a seller of apps, for not at least the next 12 months.
The chief executive also said Rogers was working on a new wireless pricing strategy.
“You need a network, you need devices, you need applications, and you need pricing to be right to actually foster customers embracing it,” he said.
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