An interesting observation about the spectrum auction results.

Look at the total spent by the major new entrants:

Top New Entrant Bidders:
Quebecor	$554,549,000
Globalive	$442,099,000
DAVE	$243,159,000
Shaw	$189,519,000

This totals $1.4B. Does that number sound familiar to anyone?

Check out the news clippings from just under 4 years ago. Rogers bought Microcell for $1.4B in cash.

Remember that Microcell was already an operating carrier, with 30 MHz of national spectrum, 1.2M subscribers, a working network (towers, switches, international roaming agreements, staff), brand recognition, etc.

What would have been the state of mobile wireless in Canada had others foreseen the value?

Technorati Tags:
Industry Canada, AWS Spectrum Auction, Microcell

After 331 rounds, we have finally reached the end of bidding in the AWS spectrum auction.

The final tally: $4,254,710,327.

I suspect there are some long overdue vacations for the bid teams at the various carriers.

Top Bidders:

Rogers	$ 999,367,000

TELUS	$ 879,889,000

Bell Mobility	$ 740,928,000

Quebecor	$ 554,549,000

Globalive	$ 442,099,000

DAVE	$ 243,159,000

Shaw	$ 189,519,000

SaskTel

$ 65,690,000

Technorati Tags:
Industry Canada, AWS Spectrum Auction

Effective today, the CRTC begins operating with a new converged organizational structure.

Activities common to both sides of the Commission, broadcasting and telecom, will be grouped under the Policy Development and Research sector, under Namir Anani’s leadership. This will include social policy and dispute resolution. Accessibility issues, currently under the Telecom group moves to a new social policy group in the sector, combined with social policy functions from Broadcasting.

Telemarketing issues (such as the DNCL) will also be transferred to this organization. The Policy Development and Research sector will be responsible for conducting economic analysis on the communications industries, markets and technologies, and will process ownership and acquisitions applications.

The CRTC has talked previously about a converged Communications Act to replace the Broadcast Act and Telecom Act.

Mark Evans had an interesting post yesterday that captured some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around my mind recently.

He writes:

I’m not sure whether “paradox” is the right word but for all the digital chatter happening, people are still people with a desire/need to be analog. This explains the plethora of events, conferences (mesh is as much a social as a conference) and meet-ups, as well as why many people still flying around to meetings despite the time, energy and environmental impact involved.

There should be significant pressures to conduct more business using virtual on-line tools – as simple as IM and email through to sophisticated life size video conferencing.

But there still isn’t a satisfactory digital substitute for the ability of the human mind to assimilate the analog signals that can only be transmitted and processed with face-to-face communications: the handshake, the warmth of the smile, the nervous jitter.

While there are many meetings that can (and will) be replaced by digital communications, I agree with Mark that sometimes you just have stay analog.

Technorati Tags:
Mark Evans, conferences

In its official Answer to the CAIP application for Bell to cease network management of its DSL lines, Bell suggested that Google is the real internet gatekeeper.

At paragraph 15 of the executive summary, Bell wrote:

The Companies note the particular irony in Google accusing Bell Canada of playing the “gatekeeper role” by traffic shaping P2P and thereby impeding competition. If there is, indeed, any gatekeeping activity on the Internet, which is questionable, the gatekeeping is being performed by the Internet search engines, which are typically the users’ “window” to the near-infinite content available worldwide.

It appears that reports [see also here and here] are also suggesting that Google is taking on the role of Zuul in trickling out its software development kit for Android phones.

In its comments on the CAIP / Bell spat, Google said:

Google’s business is premised on making its services, content and applications available through the internet to any end user who chooses them, without restriction by any gatekeeper.

Maybe they meant “any gatekeeper, other than Google itself.”

Who you gonna call?

Technorati Tags:
Bell, Google, CAIP