700 Mhz auction nets $5.27 billion; Rogers the big buyer while Vidéotron looks to go national

By Perry Hoffman

OTTAWA - The Canadian government got its wish for four wireless carriers in each region of the country in its recently completed 700 Mhz spectrum auction, which netted federal coffers $5.27 billion.Overall, the results of the auction show that it was the Big Three that divvied up the majority of the spectrum even though they were limited on buying prime spectrum in the B, C, C1 and C2 blocks. While Rogers Communications focused on the prime B band and the A block, Bell Canada and Telus licence purchases appeared to complement each other in the C2 and the unpaired D...