Because the company is early out of the gate and the industry is highly competitive, the demo in a downtown Toronto coffee shop was marked with a little paranoia. Off in a corner were a group of technicians with a scanner to make sure someone wouldn't jam the signal.

The demo itself wasn't spectacular -- Krastajic phoned a reporter about 20 metres away from him. And there were two small snags: The reporter's phone rang, but when he answered it, another call plugged the line so he didn't connect with Krastajic. On the second attempt Krastajic got the reporter's voicemail. Finally, they connected.

As a demo went, it wasn't much, but it made Krastajic's point that despite getting what some thought is unusual spectrum, Public Mobile is determined to open its doors.

The network is being put together by Brian O'Shaughnessy, vice-president of network and technology, who said he started his career as Bell Mobility's first radio frequency engineer. He rose to become VP of wireless technology development, and most recently Bell's VP of video and access network technology.

"It's very exciting to be back at what I started doing," he said, referring to the early network creation work he did at Bell.