TORONTO – Mobilicity is encouraging the government to follow the lead of the United States and implement a “spectrum screen” to limit spectrum holdings and hoarding during the pending 700 MHz auction.
In a letter sent last week to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Industry Minister Christian Paradis, Mobilicity executive chairman John Bitove detailed the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to apply a spectrum screen in order to help block the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger out of concern that one carrier would hold too much spectrum. The letter also laid out the differences between such a screen, which ensures a carrier’s holdings do not exceed a predefined threshold, and an auction cap, which specifies how much spectrum a carrier can purchase in a single auction.
Bitove also wrote that Canada’s three incumbents’ “excessive” spectrum ownership, which he claimed is more than twice the amount of the highest holders in the U.S., can be blamed on the lack of such a screen in addition to “the free spectrum that were gifted to the incumbent carriers back in the 1980s”. He also urged the government to proactively regulate all used and unused spectrum holdings.
Mobilicity has previously lobbied that Ottawa should set aside spectrum for smaller players during the next auction. That auction is expected to take place later this year or in early 2013.
