Last week, Minister Paradis announced “the next steps in our government’s plan to build a more competitive wireless sector”. In his speech: “New measures to increase competition in the wireless sector“, there were four key elements announced, Â as I listed in my blog post last week:
- expandingâand extendingâthe requirement for wireless companies to provide roaming on their networks to competitors;
- tightening the rules to increase cellphone tower sharing, thereby helping to limit the construction of new cell towers;
- use the upcoming wireless spectrum auctions to promote four competitors in each region of the country;
- review the policy on spectrum licence transfers with the objective of promoting competition in the wireless sector.
In theory and with the best intent, these measures are supposed to help foster a more competitive market. The problem was that these measures were announced without an overall strategy against which they could be tested for consistency with an ultimate objective. So the measures sound good, but how can we determine if they fit together with an overall plan?
In practice, we may have already seen the first unintended, yet somewhat predictable sign that some of these measures could be counter productive.
The fourth element of the Minister’s plan was likely targeting the Shaw-Rogers spectrum option deal, but it scored a direct hit on a potential exit strategy for the backers of new entrants. Was this announcement a contributing factor for the current debt challenge facing Mobilicity?
This isn’t the first time that we have seen this kind of behaviour. A year ago, I wrote about the “Digital indecision” discussing the foreign investment consultation that overhung the market for 2 years.
We have Industry Canada and the CRTC each examining new measures that will impact the willingness of investors to fund wireless competition. How are we ensuring appropriate coordination? What policy direction is guiding the deliberations? At a time that Canada is seeking to recruit foreign carriers to participate in the upcoming 700MHz auction, one needs to ask how this contributes to a better investment climate for competition.
What is the overall strategy for wireless? How does it fit into an integrated national digital strategy?