TORONTO – Robert Dépatie doesn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Rob Bruce.
A day after Bruce, the president of the cable and wireless arm of Rogers Communications, called for no restrictions on the Canadian government’s upcoming auction of 700 MHz spectrum, Dépatie, the president and CEO of Videotron, called for definitive restrictions on the auction. Specifically, Dépatie made the case for an in-band spectrum cap for 700 MHz bidders while speaking at the Canadian Telecom Summit on Wednesday morning.
As the company has spelled out for Industry Canada as it prepares to write the rules of the 700 MHz spectrum auction, Dépatie proposed that the government limit any company that already owns low-frequency (800 MHz) wireless spectrum in a given region to bidding for and buying just one new spectrum block in the 700 MHz range. That would keep such incumbent wireless powers as Rogers, Bell Canada and Telus from gobbling up more than one block apiece with their deep financial pockets.
At the same time, Dépatie’s proposal would allow any company that does not already own low-frequency cellular spectrum in a region to bid for and buy up to two 700 MHz spectrum blocks. So, newer wireless players like Videotron, Globalive, Public Mobile, Wind Mobile, Shaw and others would be able to acquire up to twice as many 700 MHz spectrum blocks as their much larger rivals.
Dépatie (pictured) argued that this “fair shake” approach would offer several advantages over other spectrum proposals that have been advanced. For one thing, he said the Videotron proposal would not exclude any company from bidding on spectrum nor guarantee success for any firm. For another, it would not set aside spectrum for any firms and would avoid “any definitional skirmish” over what constitutes a new market entrant.
“The result would be something that everyone – from wireless carriers to ordinary Canadians – would be happy to see,” he said. “There would be sustainable competition in the market, with multiple strong players able to offer better service through faster networks with broader geographic coverage.”
Dépatie also noted that, even with the proposed in-band spectrum caps, “the incumbent cellular carriers would still come out on top.” So he implied that Rogers, Bell and Telus would have little to fear from the idea.
In his combative keynote, Dépatie couldn’t resist taking a few potshots at the Big Three. Calling on Ottawa to “fix the spectral imbalance that favors Rogers, Bell and Telus,” he stressed that the three incumbent carriers still have “almost 140 MHz of spectrum more than Videotron or any other challenger.” He also emphasized that the three Canadian incumbents together “control much more spectrum” than most other cellular carriers in other countries.
“If the Canadian government would like to see how well the industry can perform when carriers can really compete, an equal footing is the place to start,” he said. “I am deeply concerned that without balanced access to spectrum, Canada’s vibrant new competitors will not be able to sustain themselves in the face of incumbent structural advantage.”
Citing statistics from Videotron’s recently released first-quarter earnings report, Dépatie boasted that Videotron’s new wireless network already covers more than six million people in Quebec. Videotron, which started in the wireless business about two years ago, has now signed up 165,000 mobile subscribers for its new service.
Further, Dépatie played up Videotron’s Wednesday launch of Lib-TV, which he billed as “Canada’s first exclusive mobile TV channel.” Without going into details, he said Lib-TV will be “a truly integrated offering” that will show how well TV and mobile programming can be blended together.
Alan Breznick is a Toronto-based senior analyst at Heavy Reading, part of the Light Reading Communications Network at UBM TechWeb.
Photo by Michal Tomaszewski courtesy the Canadian Telecom Summit.
