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Telus dials into a young, growing market
Until now, Telus Corp. chief executive officer Darren Entwistle has stood on the sidelines as rivals joined forces with well-known consumer brands to launch new wireless services.

That changed Friday when Mr. Entwistle announced an agreement to bring the Amp'd Mobile brand to Canada next year.

It's the right time and right partner to make such a move, Mr. Entwistle explained in a phone interview. The deal gives Telus an opportunity to expand its vital wireless business by extending its reach in the youth market. It's a niche Amp'd Mobile has targeted in the United States by stuffing all kinds of entertainment content into cellphones.

Virgin Mobile Canada and Loblaw Cos. Ltd. use Bell Mobility's wireless network, while 7-Eleven Canada Inc.'s Speak Out Wireless service uses Rogers Communications Inc.'s Fido network.

A good fit is crucial as Vancouver-based Telus aims to enhance, not cannibalize its own brand, according to Mr. Entwistle. In Canada, the service will be branded as Amp'd powered by Telus.

"The one complements the other, and as a result the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," Mr. Entwistle said.

In addition to the agreement in Canada, Telus is investing $7.5-million (U.S.) in the U.S. parent, Amp'd Mobile, Inc., joining investors like MTV and Universal Music.

Wireless is a crucial business for Telus, which depends on it to offset a shrinking local and long-distance phone business. The company Friday reported an 88-per-cent increase in second-quarter profit, driven by higher demand for wireless and high-speed Internet services, along with tax adjustments.

Consumer brands are looking to tap into that growth and slowly entering the wireless business. But building a wireless network is too costly, so they strike deals with the phone companies and become a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO.

Cell phones get in the way of intimacy

Fri Jul 28 2006

By Misty Harris
LONELY hearts hoping for a love connection are increasingly getting a busy signal thanks to a trend that finds people using their cellphones to repel potential suitors.

According to one of the largest mobile technology surveys ever conducted, one in five people admit to enlisting their cell as a "symbolic bodyguard" to deflect the advances of strangers in public, typically staging fake calls or pretending to text message to avoid chats. For adult women under 25, the number skyrockets to 55 per cent.

Those couples that do make it to the bedroom still run the chance of having a cell come between them, as only 14 per cent of people surveyed turn off their mobiles before doing the deed. Eleven per cent compromise by switching their cells to silent, while the rest wouldn't dream of breaking their link to the outside world.

"For some people, it's extremely important to stay connected," says Richard Smith, publisher of the Canadian Journal of Communication. "They don't let a little sex get in the way of that."

Market research agency YouGov, in association with the London School of Economics, conducted the survey of more than 16,500 people across the United Kingdom. Results were published this week as part of The Carphone Warehouse's Mobile Life Report 2006.

On this side of the pond, you don't have to look far to find evidence of the survey's key findings. Just two months ago, Paris Hilton's publicist issued a statement regarding his client's fondness for simulating calls to shield herself from onlookers, noting the heiress "uses her cellphone as a defensive tool."
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Accordingly, the Mobile Life Report found a whopping 82 per cent of women feel safer when toting a cellphone while "out and about." Likewise, a cellphone brings feelings of security to 49 per cent of men.

Analysts attribute a portion of this behaviour to people's penchant for using their phones as a barrier.

"A cellphone isn't a date-deflector by design, but it does the trick," says Smith, an associate professor of communication at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University.

"There's this notion that when you go into the phone, you're literally turning away from the rest of the world -- which really annoys some people. But in the unwelcome advances department, it's perfect because it seems so completely uncontrived."

In addition to stopping relationships before they start, cellphones are also being used to end relationships that have run their course.

One in five people aged 18 to 24 have sent or received a "Dear John" kiss-off via text message; the number drops to 12 per cent for those 25 to 29, and to eight per cent for the 30 to 39 crowd.

Those who aren't breaking off unsatisfying relationships might fall into a separate category of mobile deceivers.

About 28 per cent of adult men and women under 25 confess to regularly using their cellphones to text or talk to someone they don't want their partner to know about.
In the 25 to 49 demographic, 18 per cent of men and 13 per cent of women said the same. For those 60 and older, just five per cent fell into this group.

-- CanWest News ServiceTelus dials into a young, growing market