Cartt.ca spoke to some smaller players about their plans
By Ahmad Hathout
After late October, Innovation Canada is expected to begin licensing portions of the 3.5 GHz spectrum it auctioned off earlier this year, so Cartt.ca asked some smaller providers what they plan to do with it.
The auction, completed in July, involved 23 applicants gunning for 1,504 licenses. The government sold the licenses for a total of $8.9 billion.
As tensions mount among larger providers over whether Quebecor’s Videotron should be allowed to build out west – Bell and Telus alleged the company cannot because it does not have adequate base facilities to qualify – smaller providers said they will be focused on either expanding services or building out next-generation networks.
“We will be augmenting our existing spectrum coverage areas to roll out faster speed 5G services,” said Samer Bishay, president and CEO of Iristel, which won eight blocks of the spectrum to cover over 219,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon.
“We are all spectrum hungry due to the rapid increase of data intense services,” Bishay added.
Iristel has been in court battling an audit by the Canada Revenue Agency, which has withheld millions of dollars from the company. Iristel said this means it has had to hold back on some of its expansion ambitions and said in a July press release following the awarding of the spectrum licenses that it was gunning for 80 more blocks, but claimed the CRA deprived it of potentially winning them.
For SSi Canada, which operates in Nunavut, the five 3.5 GHz licenses it got at auction to cover over 35,000 people is an opportunity for it to expand capacity and coverage in a region that is in dire need of it.
SSi had previously acquired 3.5 GHz licenses back in 2009 and is using the spectrum for microwave backhaul and point-to-point services, the president and CEO of the company told Cartt.ca.
“With the changes in band usage, we now have the option… to also introduce mobile services using the same spectrum,” he said. “In terms of our plans for that, we are currently operating mobile services (4G LTE and 2G GSM) using our licensed 2500 MHz and 1900 MHz spectrum in Nunavut. The 3500 MHz licence provides us with a very valuable “expansion band” for additional capacity and coverage.
“We have not yet set a fixed time frame to use the 3500 MHz spectrum for mobile services in addition or in replacement to the current ‘fixed’ services in the band,” he said.
Before the 3.5 GHz spectrum auction, this band of radio frequencies was used exclusively for fixed-wireless services, including by the likes of Xplornet, which services rural and remote areas of the country. The largest holder of the licenses was a wireless partnership between Rogers and Bell called Inukshuk.
Valley Fiber, out of Winkler, Manitoba, is a recipient of six blocks of 3.5 GHz licenses to cover a population of 175,000. Conley Kehler, the company’s executive director of strategic partnerships, told Cartt.ca the company is looking to use the spectrum for last mile Internet, television and phone services. (Some have said they can only give high-level answers about what they will do with the licenses.)
Montreal-based Ecotel, which provides LTE and 5G services to industrial environments and remote regions and won two blocks of 3.5 GHz spectrum, said it will extend its services to its “current and upcoming” customer base. Its blocks are expected to cover just over 100,000 people.
As for Videotron, the future is unclear.
On September 23, the Federal Court denied a Telus motion to expedite the hearing into whether Videotron should be allowed to build in the western provinces, after Innovation Canada submitted a letter stating it does not intend to issue the licenses until after late October.
The hearing for the Videotron matter is scheduled for Oct. 19 at 9:30 a.m., the Federal Court said in directions issued Wednesday.
