TORONTO – Wind Mobile made a final appeal to Industry Canada and the federal government to set aside a portion of the 700 MHz spectrum for exclusive bidding by new wireless entrants. The rules for the pending auction are expected to be announced shortly.
In a statement on Friday, CEO Anthony Lacavera said that the idea of spectrum caps, which was proposed by Telus, will not only shut investors out of the pending spectrum auction, buts it puts the ‘Big Three’ incumbents interests ahead of consumer interests
“If Minister Paradis makes a decision to announce ‘caps’ over ‘set aside’ for the next wireless spectrum auction then he will have decided to side with high-paid Big Three lobbyists instead of the Canadian consumer," Lacavera said in the statement. “If the Harper Government makes this mistake, they will undo every positive advance made in wireless over the past three years and move us back to an era dominated by an oligopoly that produced higher prices, fewer choices and mass dissatisfaction among consumers.”
Without access to foreign capital and to the 700 MHz spectrum set aside, Lacavera maintains that no new entrant would, or could, seriously bid against the likes of Bell, Rogers and Telus. That would most certainly result in the return of higher-priced wireless services in Canada.
“We invested over a billion dollars in Canadian wireless under the promise of a real competitive landscape in this country,” added Ossama Bessada, VimpelCom’s head of Europe and North America and CEO of Wind Italy. “We fully expect that the government will do the right thing and live up to its commitment to build a thriving, viable wireless market by setting the conditions for new entrants to fully participate in the upcoming auction and disallow the incumbents to outbid the opponent in order to stave off competition.”
Russia's VimpelCom bought control of Orascom Telecom in October 2010, which included the 65% interest Orascom had in Wind Mobile here in Canada.
