QUISPAMSIS, B.C. – Having been unable to secure a wireless partnership for its membership with one of the three incumbents, the Canadian Cable Systems Alliance is looking forward to having more players in that market.
The independent cable and telecom group which represents member companies in most of Canada said in a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement on Wednesday that its members are “keenly interested in offering full communications service bundles, including wireless telephony.”
However, no CCSA member companies operate wireless services because they have not been able “to negotiate commercial partnering arrangements with existing wireless carriers to offer such services in their operating territories,” reads the letter.
The prospects for such a partnership where CCSA member companies would be able to offer the fourth leg of the communications stool (video, internet, wired phone, wireless) “would be greatly enhanced by the introduction of new, competitive wireless carriers into the marketplace,” it adds.
So in its letter to Minister Clement – who, as we reported, is gathering information from the industry on the CRTC’s decision to deny Globalive’s status as a Canadian carrier, since Egyptian company Orascom owns the majority of equity and debt – the CCSA laments the Commission result, especially since Industry Canada had given it the okay.
“While CCSA has the highest regard for the CRTC’s expertise to regulate under the Telecommunications Act, the uncertainty that two reviews with completely different outcomes has created is very unfair to the businesses affected and can only discourage new entrants in the future,” reads the CCSA letter.
“Incumbent wireless providers have been able, first, to lobby the CRTC to create a new and unprecedented public ownership review process and, then, to invest substantial resources in that process to convince the CRTC to reject the Globalive application.
“It appears to CCSA that this outcome was completely at odds with the Government’s overarching policy to increase competition in the wireless market.
“It is very difficult for any company to raise almost $1/2 billion in debt financing or even the majority of that amount in the Canadian market. The current economic climate makes this even more difficult,” added the CCSA, urging the minister to “carefully review the implications of this result for the Canadian wireless market and for telecommunications in Canada in general.”
– Greg O’Brien
