I SHOULD BE FIRED as moderator. It’s as simple as that.
As referee of the lively Canadian Telecom Summit “Regulatory Blockbuster” panel in Toronto Wednesday, I accepted questions from the floor, via text and on Twitter while Ed Antecol (Globalive), Mirko Bibic (Bell), Ken Engelhart (Rogers), John Lawford (PIAC), Chris Peirce (MTS Allstream) and Michael Hennessy (Telus) lobbed verbal brickbats at each other.
How great would it have been if, while these regulatory lawyers were hurling oral grenades, the chairman of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstein, were to ask them a question? Turns out he did, on Twitter. And I missed it as the #cts11 tweet stream went by. Augh!
As we say on Twitter: #fail.
Von Finckenstein wrote (as you can see below) “ask them about depatie’s proposed simple rule for the 700auction” For those of you who don’t use Twitter, caps are just a delay…
Videotron’s idea is to cap the upcoming 700 MHz auction in a unique way where companies which already own low-frequency spectrum in the 800/850 MHz band can only bid on one block of 700 spectrum while those not owning 800 in a certain region can bid on up to two blocks of 700.
With so much low frequency spectrum already, incumbents don’t need a whole lot of 700, Dépatie reasoned in his presentation to the CTS earlier on Wednesday.
When von Finckenstein quickly chatted with me after the panel, while not endorsing it per se he called Dépatie’s proposal “beguilingly simple”. However, the session panellists didn’t much care for it, as a couple of them noted to me afterwards, when I relayed the chair’s question to them (plus, we asked Telus CFO Bob McFarlane about it too, here).
Said Engelhart: “It’s not that simple.” While Dépatie said incumbents can use their low frequency spectrum in the 800/850 MHz range for new services and LTE rollout, that just can’t happen, says the Rogers regulatory chief. “There’s no handset ecosystem for LTE (in the 800 band) and none on the horizon,” said Engelhart. "So having 850 is no help in building LTE. It is also worth noting that Rogers’ 850 is fully loaded with GSM and HSPA+ and will be for many years."
“We think two (blocks of spectrum) is a better mix for LTE,” added Hennessy.
"Bell’s views are similar to those of Rogers. Simply put, it should be an open auction. No caps, even as modified by Videotron," said Bibic.
So, question asked – and answered.
