MONTREAL – With Industry Canada preparing to auction off new wireless frequencies in the new year (and nearing the announcement of the rules surrounding that auction), Videotron is keeping up the pressure so it can too can get a piece of the action, more cheaply than in a wide open auction.
In a speech to the Metropolitan Montreal Board of Trade Thursday, Videotron president and CEO Robert Dépatie relaunched his company’s attack against the three existing wireless carriers, saying they’re afraid to see “real competitors who’ll offer better prices and will force them to reduce their own rates.”
At the moment, Dépatie said, Canadian business and consumers are doubly penalized, first because services offered in other countries are not available here and second, because certain services available here are offered “at prices that defy the imagination”.
With the coming auction, Canada should be able to catch up to other countries where wireless communications are already well-established, he said, noting that only 58% of Canadians have a wireless device, compared to 77% in the U.S., 102% in the U.K., and higher still in the Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden.
The argument used by Telus, Rogers and Bell that newcomers such as Videotron are looking for taxpayer subsidies is “laughable”, Dépatie said.
In the early wireless days, telephone companies all received spectrum at no cost, he said. However each of those companies have paid hundreds of millions in license fees ever since being granted the spectrum.
Videotron is not looking for a gift, he said. All it wants is that the government either reserve a part of the new spectrum for new players, or that it restrict the quantity of spectrum that existing companies can acquire.
Indeed, he said, the amount of spectrum to be made available is largely sufficient for everybody and the government can accept newcomers without penalizing anyone.
“In the interest of businesses and consumers, we hope the rules of this auction will allow new players into the market.”
Dépatie said Canada cannot afford to fall any further behind other countries in the wireless field and deprive itself of “the economic, social and cultural benefits that new technologies have put within reach. For us, it is truly urgent.”
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor.
