the WIND excitement

I heard that WIND stores were actually open in Ottawa, but they are not authorized to sell anything yet.

One such store is 5 minutes from my house, at the Westgate mall, so I dropped by on my lunch break.

Here are some interesting tidbits that I learned from the sales (um, he wasn’t really selling anything) guy:

• WIND has a network in Ottawa, but even the WIND staff don’t have access to it yet; techs are working on fixing coverage issues. The guy quoted the Verizon “can you hear me now” bit.

• They don’t know when Ottawa will open for business, but I have heard numerous times it will be before the end of March. Which would be nice for people that want to take advantage of the $150 WIND will give you for breaking a contract with a competitor.

• WIND stores have a log book. If you are interested in knowing when they open, they will phone you on the launch day and tell you that they are ready.

• WIND is even cheaper than I thought. There are no hidden fees. And being taught to be cynical about “no hidden fees” I didn’t actually realize that when they say $15/month they mean $15/month gets you on their network without any additional fees what so ever. OK, so you still have to pay TAX… but there are no activation fees. Nice.

• WIND is even cheaper than I thought once I got over the “no hidden fees” disbelief. They don’t charge for SIM cards or sign up. I can walk into a store, get SIM, a new number, pay $15 and have voice/SMS service for a month. At the end of the month, I can cancel and pay no additional fees.

  OMG! That’s like GSM service in Europe! Have we finally caught up!?

• Another person was there asking about an iPhone. The WIND guy said that they are talking to some providers. Whatever, I don’t care about an iPhone. All about the [Nexus One]{nexus-one}.

So… WIND, when you call me in 2 weeks, I will go down and sign up. This still feels like it’s too good to be true. Maybe ROGERS just tainted my expectations.