One of the more surprising comments at Monday’s CWTA forum was heard at the very end of the day.
Luc Lavoie, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs at Quebecor was engaged in a lively discussion with Lawson Hunter of Bell when Luc said that Quebecor isn’t interested in a subsidy. Combine that comment with the speech delivered a week earlier by Quebecor chief executive Pierre Karl Peladeau, we can see that there is at least one new bidder that wants to move quickly to compete without handouts. With family in Montreal next year, I am looking forward to seeing Videotron make some aggressive offers for their quadruple play bundled services.
CARTT warns to watch out for ‘spectrum grabbers.’ Greg O’Brien cites a comment from earlier in the day by Vince Valentini of TD Newcrest:
Jim Shaw said ‘we’ll be there with our hand out if government is going to give something away for free’
I am in favour of a fully competitive market. What consumer isn’t? But we need the entry of new competitors to be fair – without government intervention and manipulation. As I asked last week, how do we guard against speculators that might use the subsidy to inventory spectrum, waiting to flip the licenses when foreign investment restrictions are lifted.
Terence Corcoran of the Financial Post will be moderating a session looking at competition in wireless services at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit on June 13. Panel participants include Robert Depatie of Videotron, Dave Dobbin of Toronto Hydro Telecom and John Watson of TELUS.
I have just learned about a report on The Canadian Wireless Industry – Analysis, Positioning and Capabilities: 2006-09, released by Industry Canada. I’ll review it in the coming days.