The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association has lost its new entrant members.
In a press release issued earlier this morning, WIND Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile have announced they are leaving the national association that, up until today, represented all wireless service providers, whether new entrant or long standing incumbent.
The three mobile service providers say the move is a direct result of their long-standing, mounting frustration with the CWTA’s consistent bias in favour of Rogers, Bell and TELUS on a wide variety of issues. From this point, the CWTA does not, and cannot claim to, speak on behalf of the Canadian mobile wireless sector.
There is often a tension in industry-wide associations.
Despite allegations to the contrary, telecommunications service providers fight for each customer and as a result, the representatives on association boards are often doing battle to improve competitive positioning. While personal camaraderie can sometimes help to overcome the professional competitive tensions, relationships can be strained when common ground cannot be found.
Two years ago, I observed what I called “cracks in the lobby“. where WIND Mobile and Mobilicity disagreed publicly with the CWTA over the issue of Manitoba’s proposed wireless consumer protection legislation. At the time, I asked:
In such groups, is unanimous agreement required or can a majority vote determine whether the association attaches its seal to a position? Where unanimity is not possible, should the association stand down and have members respond on their own?
The break-away from the CWTA creates some interesting challenges for the association, and also for a number of government agencies. The CRTC and Industry Canada have relied on CWTA to act as a gateway to the entire mobile industry on issues that require a common position or industry-wide action. For example, last September, the CRTC tasked CWTA with developing a solution to address handset theft. In its letter dated January 14, 2013, the CRTC asked CWTA to report by November 1:
confirming whether or not 100% participation has been achieved by the industry imposed deadline, and if not, what steps will be taken to achieve 100% participation and in what timeframe.
Without a mandate to represent 100% of the industry, it is not clear whether the CRTC will need to issue an order to all wireless service providers to participate in developing a common solution and response. When Bernard Lord was named head of the CWTA in the fall of 2008, I wrote:
Among the challenges for the new association leader will be recruitment of new members – welcoming the new AWS spectrum holders under the industry’s umbrella. While the new entrants may harbour some resentment for the CWTA’s lobbying during the spectrum consultation, there are many issues for which the common interests of the industry should unite all of the players.
At that time, four-and-a-half years ago, I told the CBC that newcomers would have much to gain by joining the CWTA. There are areas of common ground that merit industry-wide representation. Where a consensus among all of the industry players exists, there is so much more credibility, if presented on an industry-wide basis. The entire wireless sector loses when the industry can’t speak with a single voice.
[11:25am update] The CWTA issued a statement that pointed to many industry wide initiatives that have been part of the common interests shared across competitive boundaries, including: Recycle My Cell national cell phone recycling program, the upcoming stolen phone database initiative, Wireless AMBER Alerts, the Mobile Giving Foundation, E9-1-1 enhancements, the textED.ca youth education initiative, Common Short Codes, the new FCM-CWTA antenna siting protocol, wireless number portability and anti-spam regulations.
The many contributions of WIND, Mobilicity and Public Mobile will certainly be missed, and CWTA would welcome their return to the Association in the future. CWTA will continue to promote the value of Canada’s wireless sector in bringing the benefits of wireless technology to Canadian consumers, businesses and communities.
Mark,
Don’t forget that Videotron and Eastlink are both new entrants who apparently did not leave the Association. How many associations is Videotron a part of (or left)?
The public policy positions taken by Wind and Mobilicity, and to a lesser extent Public have consistently been determined by short-term self-serving interests. That has to be the reality when cash is burning, customers are growing slower than planned, and maybe the market is tougher than we thought. That approach however, is inconsistent with the needs of a trade association that has to take a long-term view of the health and success of the industry.
The writing was on the wall… The Small 3 had been complaining about unfairness at the hands of the Big 3 when it came to co-locating equipment on existing installations, and the FCM/CWTA protocol template will only make things much more difficult for new antennas to be approved. That’s fine if you’re a Big 3 and already have a network, but it is a real problem for the Small 3 who are starting from close to 0 still.
There are two sides to the CRTC point of view. On the one hand, they prefer a single industry point of contact when everyone agrees, but on the other hand, the nature of the CRTC is to receive differeing points of view.
So when incumbents and new entrants have different pespectives, it benefits the CRTC to hear both sides of the coin as opposed to hearing only a “lowest common denominator” position which an association can take.
From a regulatory point of view, I see this as a positive move as the CRTC and Industry Canada will be given more “flavoured” arguments from different participants instead of a single vanilla position.