The National Post runs competing op-eds from Globalive and Telus on Canadian wireless. Globalive's CEO asks "What’s contributing to Canada’s falling wireless rank? Canadians are being asked to pay more to get less." Telus' Michael Hennessy focuses on the last spectrum auction, saying it "resulted in an overpayment of approximately $2.4-billion by the auction participants."
Globalive vs. Telus on Canadian Wireless
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I can’t beleive Telus is still…
harping on about this. They seem to have forgotten that in an auction the bidders determines the price. Obviously the spectrum was worth that much to them. To complain about having to cut back on spending now tells me that they bought it to keep it out of the hands of the competition. If they had underpaid they wouldn’t be volunteering the money to the government now, would they?
Nobody twisted their arm…
If the spectrum wasn’t worth what they paid for it, then why did they bid it up so high? That’s the point of an auction, after all – to allow the bidders to determine the price. Nobody twisted their arms to bid that price, so by what basis have they determined that they ‘overpaid’ by $2.4B?
This is great!
Now maybe these big guys know how it feels to get ripped off for their wireless/internet services.
Wake up Bell,Rogers,Videoton et al. the party is over. You might actually have to build a network capable of carrying what you have already sold.
I’m with previous comments made by MG, use some of these funds to improve network access across Canada. Grant money out for fibre buildouts to organizations that have shown themselves to be consumer-friendly, or just create a new government agency which does this as it’s job. Just fibre rollouts though, internet service will be through whomever you choose to deal with at Points of Presence.
Shouldn’t it be the new players in the market that have to pay for spectrum and a near-nationwide buildout be the only ones with the right to complain about spectrum licensing costs?
And ++ to the math on how little cell phone expenditures is actually used for the spectrum itself.