Canada unveils major wireless spectrum plan
By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian government unveiled a major update to its wireless airwave policy on Thursday, as it seeks to lower cellphone bills and bolster its coffers ahead of a federal election next year.
The plan for making more of the invisible infrastructure available for fast-growing mobile uses like video includes an auction of high-frequency AWS-3 spectrum beginning on March 3.
The government, eager to promote competition to lower prices, said that spectrum available for mobile services will have grown almost 60 percent by May compared with early this year.
By that point a quarter of all wireless spectrum will be held by companies other than the three dominant national wireless providers - Rogers Communications Inc, Telus Corp, and BCE Inc's Bell - who had previously controlled some 97 percent of the airwaves, Industry Minister James Moore said at an event in Vancouver.
The plan should stimulate competition in wireless "through support of new entrants and ensuring that they will have access to the spectral resources they need," said telecom analyst Iain Grant from Seaboard Group.
Other measures announced include consultations on lower-frequency 600 megahertz (MHz) airwaves currently used by television broadcasters; a path to relicense 3500 MHz airwaves; enabling a new competitor to offer wireless service via satellite and land-based networks using AWS-4 spectrum; and improving the licensing process for 24 gigahertz (GHz), 28 GHz and 38 GHz bands.
The government had said in July that it would make the AWS-3 spectrum available next year, setting aside a large block of the airwaves for recent entrants to the wireless industry. [ID:nL4N0PI3C7]
The new entrants brought in after a 2008 auction have helped force down prices but not taken significant market share, with one in creditor protection and another bought by Telus.
(Editing by G Crosse and Christian Plumb)
