Cable / Telecom News

Bell says spectrum set asides will foster “rural-urban digital divide”


MONTREAL - Bell is urging the federal government to make the 700 MHz spectrum auction “open and transparent” without measures such as set asides that it claims could result in a new “rural-urban digital divide”. After promising to use new spectrum to extend its LTE network to rural Canada, Bell called out the “new carriers” which, “to the detriment of rural Canada”, have concentrated their resources in major urban centres. "The economic reality in a country as geographically large and diverse as Canada is that you need scale both to partner with global technology leaders and to invest at the level required to...