As if cued by yesterday morning’s supplementary blog post about the CRTC’s review of how much maple syrup is running through the veins of Public Mobile, the Commission issued a release about its review of Mobilicity (the service provider formerly known as DAVE).
The CRTC indicated that Mobilicity also has a relatively complicated ownership structure meriting further review under Type 2 procedures (see yesterday’s post for more info about these categories) and there was a lot of supplementary information already put on the public record as an attachment to the Commission’s letter [pdf, 250KB].
For example, slightly more than 75% of the equity is coming from outside Canada, although that investor is getting less than a quarter of the votes. About half the debt is coming from vendor financing of the equipment.
While the CRTC is saying that Mobilicity “appears to comply with the legal control requirements of the Act,” it still needs to review the “control in fact” to see if there are other ways that company might be controlled by non-Canadians [recall the double negative language in the Telecom Act].
the Commission will apply the existing jurisprudence relating to determinations of control in fact, while taking into consideration that when the Government varied Telecom Decision CRTC 2009-678, it stated that the “decision to vary is specific to the facts of this case”.
How will CRTC reviews of ownership interfere with launch plans for the new entrants?
And in a related question, will Mobilicity and Public Mobile be able to get the same sympathetic treatment as WIND did with the Government of Canada, should the CRTC decide that either of the ownership structures are offside?