Quebecor is currently negotiating a discount on the rates Rogers charges Freedom Mobile customers when roaming on its network — reports The Globe and Mail.
Shaw Communications-owned Freedom Mobile is going to be sold Quebecor’s Vidéotron in a side sale that’s part of the broader $26 billion merger of Rogers and Shaw, pending government approval.
According to sources familiar with the proceedings, Rogers and Vidéotron are in talks to settle a number of commercial issues to meet the feds’ conditions for approval.
The news comes after a recent report indicated that Industry, Science and Technology Minister François-Philippe Champagne, whose approval of the transfer of Shaw’s spectrum licences to Vidéotron is holding up both transactions, is seeking concrete commitments on cellular service affordability from both sides.
Minister Champagne is reportedly even asking for written undertakings that will guarantee consequences if the companies fail to keep their promises.
One of the commercial issues currently on the table has to do with the domestic roaming rates that telecom operators charge when users on a competitor’s network roam on their cell towers, the sources said. Freedom Mobile mainly operates in Ontario, Alberta and B.C., relying on its competitors’ networks for coverage elsewhere.
Minister Champagne’s office is the last authority left to sign off on the Rogers-Shaw merger and Freedom sale, following the Federal Court of Appeal’s dismissal of the Competition Bureau’s appeal against a federal tribunal decision to greenlight the deals.
Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor previously extended their self-imposed, mutual deadline for both transactions from January 31 to February 17, 2023.
