Rural providers face tough times with costs of spectrum repurposing, association head says

By Christopher Guly OTTAWA – As Canada’s rural fixed wireless industry contends with the loss of spectrum in the 3.65 GHz band in favour of the incumbents, more than 165,000 rural customers could be soon left without wireless internet access for months, if not years, warns the executive director of the Canadian Association of Wireless Internet Service Providers (CanWISP). Innovation Canada (ISED) “has decided that it is going to kick us out of that spectrum and auction it off to the major players for 5G mobile use,” said Jonathan Black in an interview following CanWISP’s 10th annual conference held last...