Motorola has pledged to begin taking advantage of renewable energy sources, and the company promised to acquire at least 25% of its energy from wind, Fox News reported recently. “It is Motorola Mobility’s intent through our participation in the WindMade initiative to encourage greater use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar around the globe,” Motorola Mobility’s director for sustainability and stewardship Bill Olson said. “Any company that uses at least 25% of wind energ...

WIND Telecom SpA announced on Thursday that the shareholders of Russian mobile operator VimpelCom have voted to approve the acquisition of WIND Telecom for $6 billion. VimpelCom said regulators approved the acquisition as well. The deal covers all of WIND Telecom’s assets, which includes Orascom Telecom, a major WIND Mobile shareholder, and VimpelCom will add nine new markets including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Italy and Canada to the eleven it already covers. When finalized, the purchase will make...

If you’re a Canadian BlackBerry enthusiast on Wind Mobile, we’ve got some good news for you. One of our ninjas from the north has just alerted us that the Bold 9780 has just populated Wind’s inventory system. Couple the above screen shot with rumors of extremely low BlackBerry 9700 stock levels — thanks in part to a buy-one get-one (BOGO) promotion — and we would venture to say this puppy will be hitting store shelves in the very near future. As a quick refresher, the Bold 9780 p...

Over the last several days, rumors have been swirling that the BlackBerry Curve 3G 9300 would be making its way to WIND Mobile — especially after the device surfaced in RIM’s software database. Now, one of our ninjas from the North has sent us visual confirmation of the device in Wind Mobile’s inventory system. Judging by the two listings, it appears as though the handset will be offered in two colors; we’re assuming a gray or black and something a tad bit brighter. Pricing and availab...

We’ve just been sent in some visual confirmation of what we already knew: Wind Mobile will be adding the BlackBerry Pearl 3G to its pre-paid handset lineup. What we didn’t know, and our source was kind enough to tip us off on, is that the handset will be officially announced today. No details on price were provided, but we’re confident the handset will retail for right around $300. There you have it.UPDATE: The device is now up on Wind Mobile’s website for $300.

Did we nail it or what? Today Rogers announced the creation of chatr, the low-cost wireless brand we exclusively told you about last week. Created to serve what Rogers calls a “niche” market that is not currently served by its flagship and value brands Rogers Wireless and Fido, chatr will offer no contract voice and text plans as well as unlimited talk and text plans. Data is not a part of chatr’s game plan. According to Rogers, the big draw of chatr is not only its great plans, but that for...

Forgive us for keeping this really short, but there’s still a lot of information we don’t know. Over the last few days, we’ve been hearing a lot of Canadian birdies singing that Rogers Wireless is planning to launch a new wireless brand in Canada. To be known as Chatr, the carrier is said to have been created solely for the purpose of putting wireless upstarts WIND Mobile and Mobilicity out of business by offering affordable handsets and great rate plans. It is said that the training of emp...

Here’s a shocker for you: Canadians really don’t like the nation’s Big Three wireless companies. This “revelation” comes to us by way of the Better Business Bureau, which revealed how many complaints it received about each carrier during an interview with the CBC. According to the watchdog, Bell has the dubious honor of being the worst offender with 1,020 complaints dating back to 2009. During the same period, Telus and Rogers received the second and third most complaints with 7...

Alright, Vancouverites, you’ve been a bunch of good sports politely clapping as WIND Mobile rolled out in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton, but your time has finally come. Starting today, much of Metro Vancouver will be transformed into a WIND Home Zone with the flip of a switch by Chairman Tony Lacavera and friend of BGR CEO Ken Campbell. Launch day festivities will kick off at 10am for members of the media, but Joe and Jane Public will be able to hit up the Yaletown store at 11am to get a first-...

As the Canadian Parliament opened yesterday for a new session, Governor General Michaëlle Jean dedicated a small portion of her Speech from the Throne to highlighting the Conservative government’s plans to open up the wireless industry to foreign investment. As anyone who even closely pays attention to Canadian news will remember, it was just a few short months ago when Industry Minister Tony Clement over-ruled the CRTC’s decision to bar the launch of what is now WIND Mobile. Since then, the cont...

It seems that every BlackBerry-lover on the Internets is making a big deal over this AWS spectrum-equipped BlackBerry 9100, and while it’s great to have confirmation that the unit is hitting T-Mobile (and maybe even visiting our Canadian friends at WIND, too), all in all, it doesn’t really mean much. Here’s why: (more…)

For our non-Canadian readers, it might be pretty hard to understand why there’s been so much hype about WIND Mobile finally launching. It is just a cell phone carrier after all, right? Kind of. It is a business at the end of the day, and a business hopes to be profitable (they want to make as much money possible), but the reason WIND is so brilliant is because they’re capitalizing on years of pillaging by Canada’s big three mobile providers: Rogers, TELUS and Bell. We’re not going to g...

Well, here we go… We’ve received information on what WIND (Canada’s new wireless carrier) will offer, so without further ado, the WIND lineup:BlackBerry 9700Samsung Gravity 2HTC MapleHuawei U759Huawei E181 data stickYou might be wondering about what their rate plans will offer, and while we don’t have specific pricing yet, here are the features and what you can look forward to seeing in the “WIND Mobile experience”: (more…)

It’s not a surprise that WIND Mobile and Blockbuster are joining forces to serve their own unique interests, but we’re told the partnership will be official very, very soon. All told, there will be 16 locations with 13 serving the Greater Toronto Area and 3 serving Calgary. No mention was made of any expansions outside of those two metropolitan areas after the network is up in running in other cities, but one can be forgiven for assuming that will be the case. Let’s just hope each 150 square...