TIANJIN, China – Industry Minister Tony Clement told Cartt.ca late on Friday that one of his priorities this month is to get the wheels rolling on the auction of the 700 MHz wireless spectrum.
While beginning a tour of China on Friday, Minister Clement took to Twitter to note his visit with telecom manufacturer Huawei, writing: “Finished a meeting with telecom provider Huawei. They are set to hire more Cdns. I’ve concluded we must get the 700mHz auction going soon.”
That obviously caught our attention, so we responded to the minister on Twitter asking for clarification. He called us back to expand.
The 700 MHz spectrum, of course, is what our conventional broadcasters use to transmit analog TV signals. They face a deadline of August 31, 2011 to get off that spectrum (shutting off their analog transmitters) and convert to digital in mandatory markets, (those 300,000 or larger, plus all provincial or territorial capitals), so that the spectrum blocks revert back to the government.
American broadcasters shut off their analog transmitters for good in June of 2009 and the Federal Communications Commission held its 700 MHz spectrum auction (raising nearly $20 billion) in January of 2008 (its auction rules were set in August 2007). In 2008, Canada was holding its own Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS) auction, which spawned the likes of Wind Mobile, Public Mobile, Mobilicity and Videotron Wireless as those companies collectively paid hundred of millions for their spectrum.
That auction raised $4.3 billion from newcomers and incumbents.
The AWS spectrum auctioned in ‘08 is in the 2 GHz band and useful for advanced services and voice. The 700 MHz band, however, is very attractive to service providers for its broadband capabilities, like better video (and it can easily penetrate walls when compared to other frequencies).
What all that means though is we’re quite well behind here in Canada and Minister Clement told Cartt.ca on Friday that he recognizes that, and, that it’s time to get moving. Canadian wireless companies have been pushing the issue publicly for months.
“I’ve been having a number of consultations with a number of telecoms who have raised the issue of the 700 MHz and it occurs to me that things don’t have to be sequential,” Minister Clement said. “You don’t have to finish all of the work to clear the bandwidth – and then start on working out the details of the auction.
“The two events can occur simultaneously and that would make it a quicker proposition to get through the auction and make some decisions so the telecoms would have some certainty as to what they have to play with.”
Having had a glimpse of the wireless sector in China over the past day or so, Clement says he feels the need to get his ministry on a faster track.
“When I get back I’m going to have a discussion with the department and see what we can do to rev things up a little bit,” he continued. “I want the department to flesh out the auction so that we can make some decisions and get on with it.”
Clement did caution that the TV broadcasters using the spectrum have to vacate it in time, and that bit of the process falls under Heritage Minister James Moore’s watch. “He can worry about that transition and I can worry about the spectrum auction,” Clement added.
“At some point the spectrum will be free so we might as well get all the rules in place and ready to go so that when it is free, the starting gun can go off.”
"Free, as in available, not no charge," we noted.
“Yes,” he laughed. “Let me clarify that.”
