OTTAWA – Two big story lines emerged from Friday's Industry Canada’s AWS-3 spectrum auction results: Rogers Communications failed to secure any additional spectrum, while Telus forked over more than $1.5 billion for 15 licences with a combined population coverage of 30 million Canadians.
The results, released Friday morning, show that Bell Mobility, Bragg Communications (Eastlink), Videotron and Wind Mobile were the other winners. Full details on the amounts paid and licences won are available here.
With Mobilicity unable to secure the financing required to compete in the auction, Wind Mobile scooped up the coveted 30 MHz set-aside licences in British Columbia, Alberta and southern Ontario for a total of $56.4 million. The move means that Wind now has 180% more spectrum where they provide services.
"This much-needed spectrum will enable Wind Mobile to launch LTE and helps level the playing field against the Big Three national carriers,” said Wind’s founder and chairman, Anthony Lacavera, in a statement after the auction results were unveiled.
The two other major new entrants also acquired spectrum in their target markets. Videotron secured the 30 MHz new entrant reserved spectrum in Quebec and eastern Ontario for rock bottom reserve prices. The company paid $31.8 million for four licences covering all of ‘la belle province’ plus eastern Ontario and the Outaouais region, adding 65% more spectrum.
"The acquisition of this spectrum will help ensure the sustainability of our mobile services in Quebec and the Ottawa region, thereby solidifying four-carrier competition throughout those areas”, said Quebecor and Quebecor Media president and CEO Pierre Dion, in a statement. “This spectrum is ideal to support continuing roll-out of mobile services that deliver the full benefits of LTE technology. Increased competition between four carriers can only benefit consumers, who will be the big winners."
Eastlink also bolstered its spectrum holdings by acquiring the 30 MHz set-aside bandwidth in all of its key cable operating territories in the Atlantic provinces as well as northern Ontario. It paid $9.9 million for the four licences and now has 77% more spectrum.
Bell added 4% more spectrum by locking up 20 MHz in the four Atlantic provinces, northern Quebec and northern Ontario, as well as the licence for Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The company also took 10 MHz in southern Ontario, in total purchasing 13 spectrum licences for just under $500 million.
But the big spender was Telus which snapped up 15 licences for $1.5 billion, increasing its spectrum holdings by 16%. They include 20 MHz of spectrum in Quebec (though northern Quebec went to Bell), and 10 MHz in southern Ontario. The Vancouver-based company also bolstered its spectrum position in western Canada through acquisitions of 20 MHz in each of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
There were 42 spectrum licences up for grabs in the seal-bid, second-price auction. The bidders purchased 39 of them, with the 30 Mhz set aside licences in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Far North left untouched as a result of auction rules limiting new entrants from bidding on territories in which they had operating networks and services.
Industry Minister James Moore said that total revenue generated from this auction is $2.11 billion, an amount that he described as “an impressive return for Canadian taxpayers”. But the total is well below the estimate of $2.4 billion made by Canaccord Genuity, which was based on Mobilicity being able to battle Wind for spectrum. The previous AWS auction held in 2008 raised $4.3 billion, while the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction, widely known as the most lucrative auction of spectrum in Canada's history, generated $5.3 billion in revenue for taxpayers.
