OTTAWA – Telus has bulked up on AWS-3 spectrum, paying more than $58 million for six licences (two each in the G, H, and I bands) covering Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Industry Canada’s auction of the left-over airwaves. This continues a trend for the Western-based telecommunications company, which secured the rights to 15 licences for more than $1.5 billion earlier this year when the bandwidth was first up for grabs.
With this auction now completed, Telus now has 21 AWS-3 spectrum licences covering all major regions of the country. (For more on the initial AWS-3 auction, read Rogers shut out, Telus spends big in AWS-3 spectrum auction.) This bandwidth goes along with the 59 AWS-1 licences the company purchased in 2008. It paid nearly $880 million for those licences. Telus holds considerable spectrum in all mobile designated bands.
In the sealed-bid, second-price auction, Bell was the lone other winner. It secured nine licences in the Far North, purchasing the rights to three licences in each of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and Nunavut. The company paid slightly more than $206,000 for the bandwidth.
There were three 700 MHz licences up for sale in the residual auction, but there weren’t any takers. The three licences remain in the hands of Industry Canada to sell at a later date.
While two of the country’s largest wireless companies were able to bolster their spectrum holdings, regional carriers SaskTel and MTS Mobility were left out in the cold. MTS wasn’t ready to comment on the results of the auction at this time, and SaskTel didn’t reply to a request for an interview. But during the consultation phase, SaskTel along with Rogers Communications raised concerned about Industry Canada’s package bidding rules.
They said then that by favouring a package bidding approach, a single entity could acquire all of the spectrum in a region, which wouldn’t be good for competition. SaskTel also pointed out at the time that this would be bad policy. It highlighted Telus as an example, saying that it has acquired more than 100 MHz of spectrum in Saskatchewan over the last seven years, but has yet to deploy any infrastructure.
The company was perhaps the most vehement in its opposition to package bidding, noting that if the department allowed a carrier (it singled out Telus in its comments) to acquire of the AWS-3 Saskatchewan spectrum, it would run counter to the government’s efficient spectrum utilization objective and “be the antithesis of the public pronouncement of ‘use it or lose it.’”
(More on the residual auction consultation is at SPECTRUM: Carriers remain divided on bidding restrictions in upcoming auction.)
SSi Micro Ltd., a small carrier in the Far North, was also qualified to bid, but was unable to acquire bandwidth.
