By Ahmad Hathout
MANITOBA — Investment firm Globalive said today that it has bid for the spectrum licences of Manitoba’s Xplore Mobile, which shuttered its wireless business this past summer.
The investment firm, which has been trying to purchase Freedom Mobile from Rogers and Shaw, said it has made an offer to Xplore for the licences and is waiting for its response. The firm is promising a mobile wireless-only competitor that will provide lower prices nationally.
“We are building a national independent wireless carrier across Canada and we are acquiring spectrum in all markets to realize our long-term vision of a globally competitive telecom market,” said Anthony Lacavera, Globalive’s founder and chairman, in a press release. “It’s clear by looking at truly competitive markets outside of Canada that these results are only possible by introducing a national pureplay wireless carrier with no legacy, fixed line business.”
The investment firm has been trying to purchase Freedom — and Shaw Mobile — as a condition of Rogers buying Shaw, but the latter opted for a Videotron suitor that is paying almost a billion dollars less. Lacavera said after the Competition Tribunal denied a petition to block the Rogers-Shaw deal that his firm was still in the running for Freedom.
“This acquisition in Manitoba will facilitate our goal to bring prices down for Manitobans, just as we already did previously for consumers in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia when we owned and operated WIND Mobile in Canada,” said the release. Globalive sold Wind Mobile to Shaw, which rebranded the company into Freedom, in 2016.
Xplore Mobile, formerly called Xplornet and owned by New York-based investment company Stonepeak Partners, said there was a “cloud of uncertainty” when it decided to close the business by the end of August. That uncertainty, it said, included high roaming rates and the CRTC’s delay in releasing the terms and conditions for the mobile virtual network operator regime that would end up coming out that fall.
Telus attempted to acquire Xplore’s spectrum licences but was denied by Innovation Canada over competition concerns.
To accommodate the new development, Globalive said it has been in discussions with Telus to expand its original conditional 20-year network sharing agreement — which was contingent on the investment company acquiring Freedom — that covered only Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Photo of Globalive Founder and Chairman Anthony Lacavera
