OTTAWA – Ice Wireless and its affiliate Sugar Mobile are seeking the CRTC’s help to salvage both its roaming agreement with Rogers and what it says is “meaningful competition” for Canadian wireless consumers.
In a Part 1 application posted Tuesday, Ice Wireless says that Rogers wants to terminate the reciprocal roaming agreement and to disconnect Ice Wireless and Sugar Mobile from roaming on its network, despite negotiations to resolve the dispute.
Ice Wireless operates a mobile network that includes coverage in the three Canadian Territories and some communities in Northern Quebec. Sugar Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that is an affiliated company of Ice Wireless and is hosted on Ice Wireless’ network.
“It is Ice Wireless’ position that the effect of TRP 2015-177, and in particular paragraph 167 thereof, is to allow Sugar Mobile end-users to leverage the Roaming Agreement between Ice Wireless and Rogers and roam onto Rogers’ network”, reads the application. “Rogers has taken the opposite view and has informed Ice Wireless that Sugar Mobile’s roaming on its network constitutes a violation of several provisions of the Roaming Agreement. Rogers’ position is particularly puzzling as it is being fairly compensated at tariffed rates for Sugar Mobile’s incidental roaming upon its network.”
Ice Wireless alleges that Rogers “has no legal grounds” for terminating the agreement, and quotes the regulatory framework for wholesale mobile wireless services which requires national carriers to “provide roaming on their GSM-based mobile wireless networks to all subscribers served by their wholesale roaming partners, including the subscribers of any MVNOs operating on their wholesale roaming partners’ networks.”
However, according to prior documents, it appears the federal government's position is that roaming was intended for MVNO customers but only to the extent they are selling services within the licensed areas of the Requesting Operator, which is Ice Wireless in this case. Sugar Mobile announced last month that it is selling services in many areas across Canada, including in Rogers' territory.
In a 2009 letter to Wind Mobile (which at the time was a wireless newcomer and seeking clarification of the roaming rules) Industry Canada appears to address the issue at hand here. The letter from IC reads at one point: "(R)oaming is mandated for all subscribers served by the Requesting Operator’s network whether they are customers of the Requesting Operator or customers of an MVNO marketing the Requesting Operator’s services within the Requesting Operator’s licensed area(s)." That would seem to suggest that Sugar customers can only roam onto Rogers' network within Ice Wireless's northern footprint.
Ice Wireless added in its filing that a disconnection from Rogers’ network would result in massive customer losses from which it could not recover. It is also seeking interim relief on an expedited basis, as well as final relief from the Commission.
“The appropriate response from Rogers to this competitive threat is to meet Sugar Mobile head-on in the battle for the loyalty of consumers through developing its own MVNO, slashing its prices, or innovating, not by using spurious legal grounds to try and shut down Sugar Mobile’s host network, Ice Wireless”, continues the application. “It is unfortunate when corporations such as Rogers do not attempt to innovate in response to competitive threats, instead using their lawyers to try and prevent competitors from even entering the market.”
Rogers spokesperson Aaron Lazarus told Cartt.ca that Rogers has never had an agreement of any kind with Sugar Mobile.
"We value our relationship with Ice Wireless and hope these violations of our agreement will be resolved", he said in an emailed statement. "In the meantime, we have plans in place to ensure our customers have coverage when travelling outside our network in northern Canada."
