Somehow, Canada has lost a major city of 700,000 people and two provinces. Manitoba and Saskatchewan, including the city of Winnipeg, have gone AWOL as far as some of the submissions in the AWS consultation are concerned.

Case in point: There is a report on current spectrum holdings attached to the submission by Mobilexchange, which seems to have forgotten about the Canadian mid-west.

The report states:

• Canadian cellular licensing in 1983 and PCS licensing in 1995 both resulted in national license footprints for the carriers. In 2001 Industry Canada auctioned “additional” PCS spectrum divided into 14 license regions (“Tier 2” areas).
  
• All of the spectrum from Canadian awards is now held by Rogers, Bell and Telus

“All” is a pretty powerful word. It means everything. The entire shooting match. Nothing but. So if “all of the spectrum from Canadian awards is now held by Rogers, Bell and Telus,” that would mean no one else has any spectrum.

Up until I read that report, I thought that the ILECs in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were facilities-based wireless carriers. I thought they got their spectrum in the original cellular license awards and have been paying license fees for 20 years. But the report says only Bell, Rogers and TELUS hold spectrum from those awards, so what happened to Sasktel and MTS Allstream. Maybe the report writers didn’t really mean “all.”

They meant all but the holders of licenses covering the 12% of the country’s land area smack in the middle of the map, including one of the 10 largest cities in the country. Any other errors and omissions? Don’t forget to check on some of the other license holders, like independent telcos.

Why is this important? One might ask if Winnipeg is an example of what can happen when 4 licensed facilities-based carriers compete to serve a major metropolitan area. There are interesting questions to examine. The competitive behaviour of a regional operator with 3 national carriers. The impact on penetration rates, end user pricing, deployment of new technologies and services, etc.

It would be a study worth looking at. But first we need to make sure that Manitoba and Saskatchewan are still considered part of Canada by respondents to the consultation process. Then we need a survey that provides the real details on spectrum holdings by all the carriers in Canada – even in those markets that have inconvenient truths.

Technorati Tags:
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, AWS, spectrum

Industry Canada’s elves have been working through the weekend to try to keep their website current with comments filed in respect of the Consultation on a Framework to Auction Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range including Advanced Wireless Services.

Catchy title, don’t you think? The acronym doesn’t seem to be any better. Time for a contest, I think. Best name or acronym submitted for this official Industry Canada consultation. Get your letters and comments in today!

Not all the submissions are up on the Industry Canada website yet, but I would expect the rest on Monday. I will be continuing my reading and you can expect comments over the coming weeks. Notably absent from the weekend’s postings were submissions by Bell, TELUS, Rogers, MTS Allstream and Quebecor/Videotron.

Industry Minister Maxime Bernier is scheduled to deliver the closing remarks at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit on the afternoon of June 13. Earlier that afternoon, there will be a panel discussion on the state of competition in wireless services and an address by Sheridan Scott, head of the Competition Bureau.

With reply comments on the AWS consultation due to Industry Canada a few weeks later, spectrum should be one of the many points to be discussed this year at The Canadian Telecom Summit. Seats are almost sold-out. Book this week in order to avoid being disappointed.

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Maxime Bernier, Sheridan Scott, AWS, Canadian Telecom Summit

Who gave shareholders the greatest return in 2006: Bell or TELUS?

I am not talking about the run-up in BCE stock in 2007 since the pension funds started circling to find a home for private equity.

Let’s first look at 2006 in isolation.

Would you be surprised to learn that Bell beat TELUS by a couple percentage points for total shareholder return last year [share price appreciation plus dividends]?

And so far in 2007, Bell is continuing to outpace its western rival, with BCE shares driven up another 27% versus TELUS around 22.5%.

Bell CEO Michael Sabia is scheduled to speak at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit at lunch on June 13.

Technorati Tags:
Bell, Michael Sabia, TELUS

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Palm founder Jeff Hawkins is getting set to launch “the next big advancement in mobile computing, including a new type of mobile device” on Wednesday. Any guesses?

Michael Moskowitz, President, Palm Canada is speaking on June 11 at The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit.

Technorati Tags:
Canadian Telecom Summit, Palm