Telecommunications Decisions

Lifting foreign ownership restrictions and 700 Mhz auction in Canada

Another political comprise wrapped in campaign speech, the latest telecom decisions serve only to ensure Canadians continue to suffer the worst mobile service in the modern world! At first glance – and that’s all Harper wants you to do – it looks good: lifting foreign ownership restrictions on providers with less than 10% of the market and reserving 25% of the 700 Mhz bandwidth for new entrants. But as they say, watch I do and not what I say: consider that MTS and Sasktel can’t benefit from foreign capital but at the same they’ll be bidding on the spectrum reserved for new entrants. Effectively the government has said “we don’t want a fourth national carrier – we want the new entrants to sell-out or die trying!”

Source: Industry Canada

Cross-posted on Schultzter’s Blog