OTTAWA – While the Canadian telecom world meets this week at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association today echoed many of its members in calling on the Canadian government to ensure the 2008 Advanced Wireless Services spectrum auction is “open and free of artificial measures.“
Ottawa has announced it will auction off AWS spectrum in 2008, and the CWTA is worried about how it will be done, as has been chronicled by Cartt.ca.
“To continue stimulating innovation and investment, the federal government must create a level playing field for all companies seeking to acquire AWS spectrum,” Peter Barnes, the CWTA’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Canadians deserve an open, innovative and competitive wireless industry. They deserve an industry that is really competitive and really Canadian.”
Canada’s wireless industry needs spectrum to continue delivering the competitive mobile communications, information and entertainment that Canadians enjoy and rely on, Barnes said. Wireless infrastructure now connects more than 98% of Canada’s population.
The AWS spectrum will give Canadians increased access to high speed internet services such as TV shows and movies-on-demand over new wireless devices. It will also integrate wireless networks and the internet, providing Canadians with access to entertainment and information, anywhere at anytime.
Over the past 22 years, wireless companies have invested more than $20 billion, giving Canada “one of the most innovative wireless industries in the world,” Barnes said. “Strong investments have allowed Canada to pioneer mobile technologies such as the BlackBerry.”
The overwhelming majority of CWTA members are concerned that companies “unwilling to persevere in the early days of Canada’s wireless industry are now lobbying for taxpayer subsidies and demanding the federal government give them spectrum and force the industry to share their networks at a regulated discount”.
“Government shouldn’t subsidize well-financed companies,” said Barnes. “Measures such as setting aside spectrum for some auction participants hurt real competition. That’s not free enterprise.”
Barnes added that subsidizing large corporations through spectrum set-asides, or other special considerations, could cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues from the auction.
The CWTA has established a new web site that contains detailed information about Canada’s wireless industry and the 2008 AWS spectrum auction. It is also running a series of newspaper advertisements.
www.cwta.ca
www.wirelesscompetition.ca
